Report: Kingsnorth E.ON UK Carbon Capture & Storage Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) - Chapter 06: Technical Design - Pipeline and Platform

During 2010-11, as part of the Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) Demonstration Competition process, E.ON undertook a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study for the development of a commercial scale CCS demonstration plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, South East England. The study yielded invaluable knowledge and the resulting material is available for download here. This chapter is devoted to the transportation and injection infrastructure requirements of the Kingsnorth Carbon Capture and Storage development. This encompasses a 36 inch (outside diameter) pipeline which runs onshore for approx 10 km and offshore in the Southern North Sea for 260 km, a platform in the vicinity of the Hewett field location, and appropriate facilities both for the conditioning of CO2 before pipeline entry and the processing of the CO2 stream prior to injection into the sequestration site. The chapter highlights in particular the following areas:- Critical assumptions; Platform Concept Selection; Transport Solution Selection; Pipeline Key Issues; Pipeline Pre-Commissioning; Temperature; Emergency Shutdown; Personnel Safety; Venting; Flow Assurance Modelling. Throughout the execution of the work described in this chapter significant opportunity was taken to ensure that the interfaces from capture (and compression) to pipeline/platform and to wells/storage were managed closely. This was achieved by cross system interface management meetings organized to consider interface issues and to compare issues raised in separate HAZIDs. The purpose of conceptual design has been to identify the problems to be addressed comprehensively by the next stage of FEED and this suite of reports provides valuable insights to the challenges faced. All aspects of establishing an agreed philosophy for design and operation of a storage and transport system for CCS begin with understanding what the initial CO2 flow conditions will be at the interface between the well perforations and the reservoir (i.e. at the sandstone face at the bottom of the well). Further supporting documents for chapter 6 of the Key Knowledge Reference Book can be downloaded.