National Outline Plan NOP 37/H for Natural Gas Treatment Facilities
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Lerman Architects and Town Planners, Ltd. 120 Yigal Alon Street, Tel Aviv 67443 Phone: 972-3-695-9093 Fax: 9792-3-696-0299 Ministry of Energy and Water Resources National Outline Plan NOP 37/H For Natural Gas Treatment Facilities Environmental Impact Survey Chapters 3 – 5 – Marine Environment June 2013 Ethos – Architecture, Planning and Environment Ltd. 5 Habanai St., Hod Hasharon 45319, Israel [email protected] Unofficial Translation __________________________________________________________________________________________________ National Outline Plan NOP 37/H – Marine Environment Impact Survey Chapters 3 – 5 1 Summary The National Outline Plan for Natural Gas Treatment Facilities – NOP 37/H – is a detailed national outline plan for planning facilities for treating natural gas from discoveries and transferring it to the transmission system. The plan relates to existing and future discoveries. In accordance with the preparation guidelines, the plan is enabling and flexible, including the possibility of using a variety of natural gas treatment methods, combining a range of mixes for offshore and onshore treatment, in view of the fact that the plan is being promoted as an outline plan to accommodate all future offshore gas discoveries, such that they will be able to supply gas to the transmission system. This policy has been promoted and adopted by the National Board, and is expressed in its decisions. The final decision with regard to the method of developing and treating the gas will be based on the developers' development approach, and in accordance with the decision of the governing institutions by means of the Gas Authority. In the framework of this policy, and in accordance with the decisions of the National Board, the survey relates to a number of sites that differ in character and nature, divided into three parts: 1. Survey of the Meretz wastewater treatment plant site – an onshore treatment facility with pressure reduction at sea, including an onshore gas treatment facility, and a pipeline from the landfall pipeline crossing to the facility, and from the facility to the transmission system. 2. Survey of the Hagit site – an onshore treatment facility with pressure reduction at sea, including an onshore gas treatment facility, and a pipeline from the landfall crossing to the facility, and from it to the transmission system. 3. A survey of two areas for offshore gas treatment facilities and the pipeline route detailed in this document, from the boundary of the territorial waters to the facilities, and from the facilities to the shore. The offshore gas treatment facility presented in the survey below enables offshore processing of raw gas. The offshore processing options detailed in the survey are varied, and relate to the entire gas treatment process, on the assumption that at this stage of planning, it should be possible to choose a flexible mix of offshore and onshore processing. This mix will be decided at the building permit stage. The offshore components of the treatment facility examined in this survey include: The route of the western pipeline – from the borders of Israel’s territorial waters (to which the Planning and Building Law applies) to the exploration areas of the offshore platform. This site is intended for laying the corridor of the pipeline for transmission of the raw natural gas (and byproducts) to the gas processing platform. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ National Outline Plan NOP 37/H – Marine Environment Impact Survey Chapters 3 – 5 2 The offshore platform exploration areas – the platform's exploration areas stretch from a western limit 7.5 km from the shoreline, in accordance with the Ministry of Environmental Protection directive, for reasons of visibility. The western limit has a depth of 100 m – at this depth, the continental shelf begins. Two sites are planned for locating the facilities: o Site 1 – the northern site, in the offshore area from Dor beach in the north to Or Akiva in the south, and extending over a total area of some 43 km². o Site 2 – extending over a total area of some 55 km² in the offshore area between Beit Yannai beach in the north and the northern section of Netanya in the south. Eastern pipeline site – from the site of the offshore gas processing platforms to the landfall pipeline crossing at Dor or Michmoret. Landfall pipeline crossing – largely described in the onshore Environmental Impact Survey, and also surveyed in part in this document. Since a developer has not yet been chosen to implement the plan, and at this stage there is a planning array in principle for establishing the gas treatment facilities, as with previous sections of the survey, this document will also examine and plan in principle the technological options for offshore treatment in order to examine the treatment facility's maximum impact on the marine environment and allow the future developer maximum planning flexibility in terms of the mix of offshore and onshore facilities. The representative plan for the treatment facility was drawn up by PDI Co., engineering consultants for the plan, and includes the document "Quantification of Emissions & Discharges," attached as Appendix B and which constitutes the basis for planning and assessing impacts in this document. The aim of Chapters 3-5 is to describe the actions arising from implementation of the proposed plan and to detail the assessed environmental impact from this implementation, and means of reducing them. The information below includes an explanation of the gas treatment method and supplements the information detailed in the two sections of the survey already circulated for the Meretz wastewater treatment facility and the Hagit site. Accordingly, the survey relates to the gas treatment process carried out onshore, and explains the principles of the process, but focuses on and goes into detail with regard to the offshore activity and its effects on the environment and population. Since the survey relates to the maximum impacts, it does relate to all types of partial offshore processing, including developing a platform for pressure reduction only. Chapter 3 - Description of Actions Resulting from Implementation of the Proposed Plan This chapter includes a review of the main components of the offshore treatment __________________________________________________________________________________________________ National Outline Plan NOP 37/H – Marine Environment Impact Survey Chapters 3 – 5 3 facility, and a description of the gas treatment process from the drilling well until the treated gas is transmitted to the onshore facility. The description of the treatment process and description of the facility will incorporate the basic assumptions regarding the facility's operation, characterization of its components, the operating regime, and remarks on hazardous materials, monitoring devices, energy sources, and auxiliary infrastructures. The information presented in this chapter is a summarized review of the engineering report on the offshore treatment facility and the engineering- operational report on the pipeline, presented in full in Appendices B and C. The gas comes from the wellhead in raw form, at high pressure, and needs to be treated before it can pass through the transmission system, in accordance with the requirements of INGL. Treatment of the gas is unique to each discovery, and may even change from one well to another in the same discovery, because the treatment depends on the characteristics of the gas: its type and composition, the pressure at which it comes out, the percentage of hydrocarbons it contains, and especially the quantity of gas condensate, the percentage and composition of the water in it, and also the quantity of antifreeze. Below is a general description of the processing chain, from the wellhead until entry into the transmission system, based on the assumption that there is a high percentage of methane in the gas discoveries (on the basis of the percentage that is common in discoveries in Israel). The description of the processing chain includes attention to the main elements that exist in most discoveries around the world: 1. Adjust the gas pressure to the pressure required for natural gas processing if part of the treatment is carried out onshore, in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, by which flow pressures in the pipeline at landfall will be no greater than 110 bar. 2. Reduce the pressure of the gas coming from the well, or compression of the raw gas where the gas in the reservoir is becoming depleted. 3. Initial separation of liquids from the raw gas in a separator, including: Removal of steam from the gas flow (water dew-pointing) Removal of hydrocarbons, such as condensate, which are liable to condense in liquid form in the pipeline (hydrocarbon dew-pointing) Removal of other substances found in the gas that are liable to be toxic. 4. Removal of antifreezes (MEG/TEG). 5. In the future, with changes in pressure in the well, an additional compression process will be added after this stage. 6. Fine separation – the gas goes through an additional cleaning and drying process (gas conditioning) that includes pressure reduction (to around 80 bar, the pressure required on entry to the transmission system), and cooling the gas (and additional __________________________________________________________________________________________________ National Outline Plan NOP 37/H – Marine