Oil and gas are often said to be the nerve of life in our country. This is true when we consider the economy of the United Arab Emirates. The oil and gas sector provides around a third of the UAE's Gross National.

This booklet illustrates the fundamental of oil and gas production and transportation. In addition it shows the basic process of gas and refinery plants.Each topic is supported by an internet link for deep details; these sites were selected carefully to give the reader a variety of information.

Oil in the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates, with total proven oil reserves of 98.2 billion barrels, ranks fourth and represents around 9.5 percent of the global crude oil reserves. As for natural gas, the proven recoverable reserves are estimated currently at 5.8 billion cubic meters or 4 percent of the world total. This means that the UAE possesses the third largest natural gas reserves in the region and the fourth largest in the world. At the current rate of utilization, and excluding any new discoveries, these reserves will last for over 150 years.

For more information, please visit this link: http://www.uae.gov.ae/Government/oil_gas.htm#Introduction

The oil and gas sector provides around a third of the UAE's Gross National Product. Abu Dhabi is by far the biggest oil producer in the UAE, controlling more than 85 percent of the UAE’s total oil output capacity and over 90 percent of its crude reserves. The UAE exports 62% of its crude oil to Japan making it the UAE’s largest customer. Gas exports are almost entirely to Japan, the world's largest buyer of liquefied gas, with the UAE supplying almost one-eighth of Japan's entire requirements.

For more information, please visit this link: http://www.uae.gov.ae/Government/oil_gas.htm#Introduction

Oil in the United Arab Emirates

Petroleum

Petroleum is the most important substance after food; it provides not only raw material but also fuel for energy, industry, heating and transportation.The word Petroleum derived from the Latin Petra and Oleum, which means “rock oil”. From a chemical point petroleum is a complex mixture of a chemical compounds that are a combination of Hydrogen (H) and Carbon (C) atoms and called hydrocarbons, usually with small amounts of impurities such as nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.

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Petroleum comes from the remains of plants and animals life, which lived 10 to 5000 million years ago. As the plants and animals died, they were covered by sand and mud. The pressure changed the sand mud to rock, and the remains of plants and animals to oil or gas.

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Petroleum

Location for Petroleum

Petroleum comes from the remains of plants and animals, which sank to the bottom of seas. And due to the earth changes over millions of years oil and gas immigrated from the source rooks and trapped in places where porous rock is covered by non-porous rock, which prevents the oil and gas from flowing out.

Oil

Anticline trap

It is formed when the layer of rock rose to form a dome, the dome must be covered by non-porous rock to trap the oil and the water pressure will push the oil upward into the dome. Fault Trap

It is a crack in the earth formed by the earth pressure, this result in a layer of porous rock next to non-porous rock. The oil which moved to the non-porous rock will be stopped by water behind it.

Salt Dome TrapA mushroom-shaped made of salt, commonly having an overlying cap rock. Here we see salt that has moved up through the earth, punching through and bending rock along the way. Oil can come to rest right up against the salt, which makes salt an effective trap rock.

Types of traps

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/systems/traps/structural/structural.html

How oil is found? Geologists start looking for porous

sedimentary rocks with non-porous rocks around. Then a special drill is used to take a rock sample; witch is examined for clues in finding oil. After that the Geophysicists uses three different devices to help in finding oil. These devises are the gravimeter the magnetometer and seismograph.

Gravimeter

Magnetometer

Seismograph

Gravimeter

Is used to measure the pull of the earth gravity; this device could measure the different gravity between the porous and non-

porous rocks .Gravimeter

MagnetometerIs used to measure the strength of earth magnetic field, this device also tells the kinds of rock lying underground.

MagnetometerSeismograph

Is used to measure the vibrations in the earth. Geologists use this device to measure the vibrations generated by vibrations truck. As the vibrations travel through the different layers of rock, the seismograph will show the types of structure and the density of the rock, this device could also show the shapes of rocks lying underground.

Seismograph

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning%20Center/Exploration.htm

Drilling

Drilling for oil is the next step after the geologists have found the location for petroleum. Cable tool drilling was used to drill the first oil well in 1859 in the USA. Most modern wells are drilled by using the rotary drill, because it is allowing to drill much greater wells.Nowadays the high technology has led to horizontal drilling, which saves a lot of time and money. The purpose of horizontal drilling is to reduce the number of rigs and to produce from different zones from one well.

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning%20Center/Production.htm

Well HeadAfter a well has been drilled and prepared for production a wellhead “a special type of equipment used to control the flow” is fixed on the well. The wellhead consists of the pieces of equipment mounted at the opening of the well to regulate and monitor the extraction of hydrocarbons from the underground formation.

Subsurface Safety ValveA subsurface safety valve is installed in the tubing string near the surface.  The valve remains open as long as fluid flow is normal. When the valve senses something amiss with the surface equipment of the well, it closes, preventing the flow of fluids.

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It also prevents leaking of oil or natural gas out of the well, and prevents blowouts due to high pressure formations. Formations that are under high pressure typically require wellheads that can withstand a great deal of upward pressure from the escaping gases and liquids.

Recovering the oilThe whole amount of crude oil can not be recovered from the reservoir; only around 50% from the total amount can be recovered. To recover the oil three important derives must be available in the oil reservoir. These derives are the dissolved gas, gas cap and the water derive. Dissolved gasIs often dissolved in the oil, as the gas expand into the reservoir it is producing a pressure, which pushes the oil through the rock to the surface.Gas capIs a large amount of gas above the oil and it is pushing the oil from the top through the rock until it reached the surface.Water deriveIs the most effective of the three derives, oil above water is forced out by the pressure of the water under it.

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There comes a point in the life-cycle of any oil reserve when primary recovery can no longer be undertaken due to natural gas depletion. Extra compression is required to force the oil to the surface in a process known as secondary recovery. Water Gas injection and electric submersible pumps are such form of secondary recovery.

Water injectionWater is injected to maintain formation pressure, which allows the oil to flow more. water is pumped into the oil reservoir through injection wells to force oil towards production wells.

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.rolls-royce.com/energy/overview/oilgas/appsintro.jsp

Improved Recovery Methods

Gas injection

Gas is injected to maintain formation pressure, which allows the oil to flow more. Denser oil from the depths of the reservoir is displaced towards the bores of the producing wells .

Artificial leftWhen the pressure in the oil reservoir is insufficient to left the oil to the surface, various methods are used to left the oil like electrical subsurface pumps.

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.rolls-royce.com/energy/overview/oilgas/appsintro.jsp

Improved Recovery Methods

Surface handling of well fluidsFluids from a well stream consists of

hydrocarbons liquids and gases mixture with water and water vapor, solids such as sand and shale sediments. Also it contains carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Several steps are necessary to separate oil and gas and made them ready to transport. The well stream is passed first through horizontal separators to separate the oil from the gas and to remove the water and solids.First stage separator: separation is achieved by buffering the crude oil into the 1st stage separator to reduce its pressure and speed. This causes the water and the gas to separate from the oil due to the different specific gravity.Heat exchanger: is used to heat the crude oil prior entering the 2nd stage separator to enhance the separation of the H2S and the water .

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Second stage separator: its function is similar to the first stage separator, except the pressure is maintained lower than the 1st separator and some time it is bigger in size to give the fluids more residence time to settle down.H2S stripper: it is used to strip the H2S gas from the crude oil injecting lean gas at the bottom of the stripper while the oils input at the top so the lean gas is taking H2S with it from the top of the stripper. The oil is pumped to the storage tank in order to pump it to the terminal. The separated water is injected back to the ground, whereas the gas is taken by Gas Company.

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Surface handling of well fluids

Natural GasRaw natural gas comes from three types of wells: oil wells, gas wells, and condensate wells. Natural gas that comes from oil wells is typically termed 'associated gas'. This gas can exist separate from oil in the formation (free gas), or dissolved in the crude oil (dissolved gas). Natural gas from gas and condensate wells, in which there is little or no crude oil, is termed 'nonassociated gas'. Whatever the source of the natural gas, once separated from crude oil (if present) it commonly exists in mixtures with other hydrocarbons; principally ethane, propane, butane, and pentanes. In addition, raw natural gas contains water vapor, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide, helium, nitrogen, and other compounds.

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/well_completion.asp

Natural GasNatural gas processing consists of separating all of the various hydrocarbons like ethane, propane, butane, and pentanes, to produce what is known as dry natural gas. During the processing the gas is cooled from -45C to -80C. If natural gas (methane& ethane) needs to be liquefied, its temperature is dropped to – 162C.In fact, associated hydrocarbons, known as 'natural gas liquids' (NGLs) can be very valuable by-products of natural gas processing.

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RefineryRefinery is a plant where the components of crude oil are separated and converted into useful products. The various components of crude oil have different sizes, weights and boiling temperatures. So, the first step is to separate these components. Because they have different boilingtemperatures, they can be separated easily by a process called fractional distillation. The steps of fractional distillation are shown in the next page.

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RefineryYou heat the mixture of two or more substances (liquids) with different boilingpoints to a high temperature about 600C. The mixture boils, forming vapor (gases); most substances go into the vapor phase. The vapor enters the bottom of a long fractionating column and vapor rises in the column and as the vapor rises through the column, it cools. When a substance in the vapor reaches a height where the temperature of the column is equal to that substance's boiling point, it will condense to form aliquid. (The substance with the lowest boiling point will condense at the highest point in the column; substances with higher boiling points will condense lower in the column).

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Crude oil is stored in tanks prior export, then crude it must be moved from the production sites to refineries and consumers. These movements are made using a number of different modes of transportation, like pipelines and tankers.

Exported crude oil price depends on the oil the API gravity, which is function in the oil Viscosity. Exported Crude oil has to be free of water, salt and Gases like H2S.

Storage and transportation of crude oil

Export crude oil price & specificationsExport crude oil price & specifications

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning%20Center/Oil_Transportation.htm

In order to transport natural gas in areas not served by pipelines, the gas is liquefied to reduce its volume. When the gas is liquefied, it shrinks to l/600 of its gaseous volume. Tankers equipped with pressurized, refrigerated, and insulated tanks are used to transport natural gas liquids and liquefied natural gas (LNG). At the delivery point the LNG is regasified and charged into a gas pipeline system.

For more information, please visit this link:http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning%20Center/Oil_Transportation.htm

Storage and transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)