Romania is a different kind of place. There is rapid development everywhere, but also the kind of place that your great-great-great grandparents might recognize. Sheep and shepards, manual working of the earth, horse carts, simple living. All alongside high speed internet, urban/industrial sprawl, traffic jams and satellite dishes.
Romania is the first place to produce and refine oil (http://www.150deanidepetrol.ro/history.html), starting in the 1840's. Today production has fallen off quite a bit. The oil industry is actively modernizing after years spent in a Warsaw Pact economy.
Along with my old ex-Shell colleague, Paul Wood, we reviewed a medium-sized gas field which had a fascinating mix of oil and new technology. Russian compressors installed in 1977 (based on 1960's technology) pumped gas while consuming hundreds of liters of lubrication oil per day were just down the road from a modern centrifugal compressor station. The separation station has no automated level controls on its 10 separators--they all used manually operated water dump valves! But for dehydration, they used a molecular sieve.
For the first time in my career I needed continuous translation in order to work together with the local team, which slowed down the effort a bit. But we still managed to review all the wells and find some gains. The larger gains require modernizing the surface facilities. The team came up with a clever re-use of one of the modern compressors (currently used as a standby unit) as a low pressure suction compressor. The project is expected to give about 15% extra production and 10% increase in recoverable reserves, with a nice profit. The event showed how multi-discipline teamwork, an open mind and a focussed process can uncover substantial value.
We stayed at Hotel Europeca in Craiova. The food was pretty good, but you might be put off by the menu:
I liked Romania. The weather was pleasant. The infrastructure was good for a developing country and the people were pleasant and eager to help. I'm looking forward to returning.
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| Farmer, horse, wellhead |
Along with my old ex-Shell colleague, Paul Wood, we reviewed a medium-sized gas field which had a fascinating mix of oil and new technology. Russian compressors installed in 1977 (based on 1960's technology) pumped gas while consuming hundreds of liters of lubrication oil per day were just down the road from a modern centrifugal compressor station. The separation station has no automated level controls on its 10 separators--they all used manually operated water dump valves! But for dehydration, they used a molecular sieve.
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| Brainstorming opportunities on the asset's cartoon |
We stayed at Hotel Europeca in Craiova. The food was pretty good, but you might be put off by the menu:
I liked Romania. The weather was pleasant. The infrastructure was good for a developing country and the people were pleasant and eager to help. I'm looking forward to returning.
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