An MILP method for optimal offshore oilfield gathering system

Offshore oilfield gathering system plays a key role in oilfield exploration and production process, the rational construction of the gathering system is directly related to the efficiency and profit of the offshore oilfield production. Thus, optimization of the whole gathering system is the key to lower the offshore oilfield production cost, and it also has been one of the major challenges in offshore oilfield production. Many researches have been done on the optimization but pipeline network distribution, treating technical and integrated optimization still remained unsolved. This paper focuses on the common offshore oilfield gathering network construction, taking gathering radius, economic flowrate, terrain obstacles and production technic into consideration, building a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model, figuring out the globally optimal connection topology, location of center platforms, pressure increment and dehydrating facilities and major parameters of each pipeline, and contributing to further optimal offshore oilfield engineering mode. Last, this paper takes two typical real cases, namely half-offshore and half-continent mode and offshore mode, to test the accuracy of the proposed model. The optimal results indicate the proposed method can lower the general investment and testify the liability and applicability of it.