05.07.2009
Cargoes that can be diverted to wherever prices are highest. During 2007 for instance many shipments were diverted away from the US and towards more lucrative Asian and European markets.
Flexible pipe laid on the seabed for the transportation of production or injection fluids. It is generally an infield line, linking a subsea structure to another structure or to a production facility. Its length ranges from a few hundred meters to several kilometers
All shippers need to balance their gas shipments through the pipeline system, namely to maintain their input and withdrawal of natural gas below a specific tolerance level on both a daily and monthly basis. Shippers can balance their system by buying or selling gas in the highly liquid on system market where the price of natural gas determines the cost of maintaining their balance. But shippers do not always maintain their daily balance and the whole pipeline system may become unbalanced if the sum of individual imbalances exceeds a certain tolerance level. The pipeline operator must then inject or withdraw natural gas to restore the balance. The value of the natural gas in these transactions is not reflected in the on-system price. To facilitate the pricing of this gas the flexibility mechanism was introduced in 1996 in the UK. The flexibility mechanism allows market based determination of the value of the natural gas needed to restore the balance in the pipeline system. This gas is traded in an auction and interested bidders post their bids specifying volumes and the price at which they want to buy or sell. The pipeline operator buys gas if it expects that injections into the system will be less than withdrawals and vice versa.
Features you can see on seismic that are caused by the seismic wave passing through a gas or oil filled section rather than a water filled section. These show the potential for gas/oil-water interface within a structure. Flat spots can be flat or tilted depending on underlying pressure gradients and structure. They can represent (if they are real) the interface between gas and water, gas and oil, oil and water. Invariably in a typical reservoir you have gas on top (lightest), oil in the middle and water at the bottom.
The lowest temperature at which a liquid can form an ignitable mixture in air near the surface of the liquid. The lower the flash point, the easier it is to ignite the material. For example, gasoline has a flash point of -40 degrees C
Unwanted natural gas that is disposed of by burning as it is released from an oil field or at gas processing plants
Tall metal structure used to burn off gas produced by the oil/gas separation in oil fields, when it is not possible to utilize it on site or ship it elsewhere. An open flame used to burn off unwanted natural gas
The process of assembling flanged components such as pressure-control equipment.