Development of technologies for production, processing, and transportation of unconventional natural gas resources

非常规天然气储量与市场之间的距离为将天然气经济、安全地运输到消费中心带来了重大挑战。天然气在向工业化国家提供能源方面继续发挥着重要作用。世界上有很大一部分天然气资源被认为是搁浅的。建议研究开发新颖、先进和有效的技术，以开采海上/偏远地区的天然气。这些技术应该能够处理和制备天然气，以便使用传统的和成本较低的运输手段以液体形式运输，或以其他运输方法以极具成本效益的方式以气体形式运输。工艺设备的紧凑性在海上和浮式设施的设计中具有至关重要的意义，因为其占地面积非常宝贵。该研究计划的主要目标是开发用于天然气生产和加工的先进技术，特别是用于深水、海底和船舶系统。有人建议，该工艺设备必须能够在海上（最好是海底）条件下有效去除天然气中的杂质，并为偏远地区的高效生产和加工提供低成本和紧凑的手段。

The distance between unconventional natural gas reserves and markets creates major challenges for transporting the gas to consumption centers economically and safely. Natural gas continues to gain great importance in supplying energy to the industrialized world. A large portion of natural gas resources in the world are considered to be stranded. It is proposed that research be conducted towards the development of novel, advanced, and efficient technologies to exploit natural gas from offshore/remote areas. The technologies should be capable of processing and preparing natural gas to be transported either in a liquid form using conventional and less costly means of transportation or other transportation methods in a gaseous form but in a very cost effective manner. The compactness of process equipment is of crucial significance in design of offshore and floating facilities as the footprint area is at a premium. The main objective of this research program is to develop advanced technologies for natural gas production and processing especially for deep water, subsea, and ship-based systems. It is proposed that the process equipment must allow efficient removal of impurities in natural gas under maritime and preferably subsea conditions and provide a low cost and compact means for efficient production and processing from remote locations.