Emerson helps Qatargas save energy and reduce greenhouse gases

Emerson Process Management has provided automation and engineering services for a Qatargas project that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.6 million tonnes annually.

Now fully operational, the Jetty Boil-Off Gas (JBOG) recovery facility is the biggest of its kind and one of the largest environmental investments in the world. It is expected to recover more than 600,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year — equivalent to the energy supply for more than 300,000 homes.

The facility is designed to recover the gas flared during liquefied natural gas (LNG) loading at the six LNG berths in Ras Laffan Port. The gas is compressed and sent to the Qatargas and RasGas LNG production facilities for use as fuel or as LNG.

Emerson won this multimillion-dollar contract based on its leadership in oil and gas automation technologies, services and expertise. Emerson specialists managed key elements of the project including automation engineering, configuration, start-up, training, commissioning support and other services.

“Without Emerson’s highly skilled team, completing the project would have been vastly harder,” said Michael Koo, project manager for Qatargas.

Emerson’s automation solution for the project included the DeltaV distributed control system to control and monitor operations, as well as the company’s Fisher control valves and Rosemount measurement instruments.

“The Emerson team welcomed this opportunity to help Qatargas execute the project safely, reliably and efficiently,” said Alvinne Rex Abaricia, Emerson’s senior program manager for Qatargas. “We were able to apply flexible approaches to increase efficiency, such as testing hardware and software in parallel, and brought in dozens of experts from our own organisation as well as other suppliers to manage interfaces between existing and new systems.”

The $1 billion JBOG project is a landmark for the State of Qatar, demonstrating its commitment to balance industrial expansion with care for the environment.