ExxonMobil Production Company Gas Management System

This reference is for an abstract only. A full paper was not submitted for this conference. The paper will provide an overview of the system developed and adopted by ExxonMobil for managing the risks to sustained gas delivery in our upstream operations. The paper will cover the guiding principles, the breadth of scope, key elements and processes, and the interface coordination and workflows associated with the Gas Management System (GMS). It will also discuss critical success factors for effective implementation and lessons learned. Unplanned downtime and the resulting disruption of product supplies to customers can have significant financial and reputation impacts on a producing company. Sustaining reliable gas deliveries requires disciplined identification of potential risks to production, processing, and delivery systems. Addressing these risks in a systematic way is a multifaceted challenge. The integrity of the physical assets, the ranges of potential variations in production and the environmental conditions including contingency planning, personnel readiness, and customer systems all need to be understood to manage what can be sudden and rapidly changing events in response to internal or external initiating factors. An effective management system focuses appropriate resources on higher risk areas while ensuring other supporting management systems manage lower and medium risks. Training and competency assurance for operations and maintenance personnel are tracked at the same level of oversight as for other integrity-critical processes and systems that monitor asset performance and health. Clear delineation of responsibilities and interfaces for technical support are also established. The GMS also monitors seasonal changes, such as owned and customer asset readiness, chemical and logistical readiness, and the impacts of all changes to existing systems and any new operations on gas deliverability. This paper provides an overview of the structure, discipline, and coordination associated with sustaining gas deliveries utilizing a GMS. It will highlight development of the system, a typical implementation strategy, and challenges with achieving a truly institutionalized management system for consistent performance over the asset life-cycle. The application of a gas management system will likely be of interest to gas marketing professionals, Operations management and technical staff.