Is Mercury Contaminating your Natural Gas? Improved Accuracy in Downhole Analysis; A Case Study from Sand Face to Production Stream

Organised by Main Technical Program

Natural gas is a critical part of the world’s energy supply and plays an important role in the transition to lower carbon energy sources. Industry’s ability to process natural gas safely and efficiently will continue to rely on an accurate understanding of feed gas composition and contaminants, particularly in enabling future developments via existing infrastructure.

Mercury is toxic to organisms and highly volatile. Produced from hydrocarbon basins globally, the inaccurate measurement of mercury concentrations can potentially impact aspects of health, process safety, environment, operations, waste disposal, and project decommissioning. Trace mercury concentrations in the hydrocarbon stream can potentially introduce liquid metal embrittlement hazards to industrial equipment, including cryogenic heat exchangers used to refrigerate gas into LNG. Worldwide, significant project cost overruns and processing incidents have resulted from uncertainty around mercury concentrations in hydrocarbon streams.

Successful mercury management ideally begins early in a project’s lifecycle with development decisions informed by accurate measurement of mercury concentrations from reservoirs. Historically, this has been problematic as mercury contamination and scavenging often results in large range of uncertainty in sampled gas.

The results and recommendations from a multi-company collaborative study to reduce mercury uncertainty in gas will be shared with industry. New downhole sampling and analysis techniques will be highlighted, along with insights from a case study of the Julimar Field in Western Australia. The recommendations, procedures and operational best practices discussed will be applicable across the industry, and beneficial to any party considering the impact of mercury in the development and processing of natural gas resources.

Speaker Janelle Lawer

Wheatstone Technical Lead for Woodside

Janelle Lawer is an energy industry professional with 20 years of working with supermajor and mid-size exploration and production companies in Australia and the USA. She has held roles across the spectrum of geoscience, petrophysics, reservoir engineering and technical asset management, with a focus on delivering integrated technical solutions.

Janelle holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons I) from the University of Queensland, Australia. She is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and will serve as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2023-2024.

About the Event

Price:             Early Bird SPE Member          $40 <Until the 19 April 2023>
                       Early Bird Non-Member          $60 <Until the 19 April 2023>
                       SPE Member                          $50
                       Non-Member                          $70

Date:              Wednesday, 26 April 2023

Location:       Parmelia Hilton Hotel
Location:       14 Mill Street, Perth WA 6000

Time:             16:45 am – 17:00 pm Registration & Networking.
Time:             17:00 pm – 17:10 pm SPE WA Opening Marks.
Time:             17:10 pm – 17:45 pm Presentation.
Time:             17:45 pm – 18:00 pm Q&A Session.
Time:             18:00 pm – 19:30 pm Closing with Networking drinks & Nibbles.

Free tickets are available for Students

SPE WA in conjunction with our sponsors is kindly sponsoring students to attend the monthly technical events. Please fill out the application form below explaining why you are interested in attending the SPE WA technical events. Successful applicants will be notified via email. Note that applications will only be accepted up to one week prior to the event.

Apply here: Application Form