LNG Annual Production Rate Sensitivity Analysis

Natural gas production over a year in an LNG facility is profoundly affected by climatic changes,  wind speeds and direction and temperature.  The impact on the production and the temperature rise over ambient at the intakes of the fin-fan units that have the tube bank heat exchanges are to be reported as part of FERC submission documents.  This paper discusses the studies carried out using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with an aim to determine the effect of hot air recirculation from air coolers, air chillers, gas turbines on neighboring units and on each other due to meteorological conditions on an annual basis.  The latest findings and best practices to evaluate the large amount of data obtained to provide accurate simulation results and derive a realistic production rate are provided.  Several methods to mitigate higher temperatures at the intakes due to self-recirculation or contamination from other units are also covered in this topic.