Success Story : First Gas South Sembakung Field - Simenggaris to PLTMG Tanah Merah , North Kalimantan

Abstract

On November 2015 South Sembakung field had been flowing gas for the first time to PLTMG owned by PT PLN (Persero) in Region North Kalimantan. The contract volume on Gas Sales Agreement (GSA) ramp up range on 0.3 to 0.5 MMSCFD. The technical obstacle appears due to the existing South Sembakung Gas Plant facilities that have been built according to the approval POD of South Sembakung Field have capacity 30 MMSCFD, besides the other gas buyers could not absorb the remaining gas allocation that have been issued and approved by the government.

Re-engineering activities carried out by changing the gas flowing path as well as the function of the equipment then could be acceptable by the technical conditions. The main target for the re-engineering was reducing the inlet pressure at metering station in accordance with the requirement PLTMG at 60-70 psig from initial output operation design Gas Plant at 770 psig. In addition, the others technical conditions to meet PLTMG requirement quite unique and made flow assurance planning for every stage operation from starting opening well until the end of commissioning has its own challenges.

This paper is intended to share the flow of steps for all activities and planning until the first gas deliver to PLN. In practice, the start-up gas to PLTMG smooth and stable after a month in operation, this is because occurrence of some technical problems in PLN mainly due to disruption of the synchronization system and gas engine over speed. In addition, until today gas absorption from PLN still lower than that agreed in the GSA and become one of the new challenges for the technical operation of South Sembakung Gas Plant.