Review of offshore energy in Malaysia and floating Spar platform for sustainable exploration

Abstract

Rapidly rising trends of fuel consumption indicate enormous energy crisis of global proportions in near future. Following the trend, Malaysia's fuel consumption has been increasing by an annual rate of 7.2% since 1990 and has even reached 44.9 Mtoe in 2008. It is forecasted to reach 207.3 Mtoe by the year 2030. Due to serious depletion of reserves in various onshore locations, the exploration process is expanded to offshore deeper waters. Seven sedimentary basins belonging to Malaysia, in South China Sea, show great promise to be excellent sources of hydrocarbons. For deep-sea exploration fixed offshore structures are not feasible. An economical alternative is Spar platforms, which are floating structures ideal for exploration of deep water deposits. In this research, Malaysian experience in offshore hydrocarbon exploration is investigated. Various kinds of operational Spar platforms are censoriously explored and their recent technical developments are reviewed. The study reveals that Malaysia's primary energy requirements were met (in year 2008) with natural gas by 43.4% of the total, crude oil by 38.2%, coal by 15.3% and hydropower by 3.1%; indicating evidently that natural gas and crude oil are still the predominant energy sources. Out of the total energy, around 70% oil and 85% natural gas come from offshore fields. These large figures highlight the necessity to consider economically viable alternatives. Spar platform is an innovative marine structure designed to conduct such deep sea explorations. First commissioned Spar at Kikeh field of Malaysia is testimony to immense potential and possibilities of incorporating Spar platforms in the country's deep reserves for sustainable energy generation. Classic Spar, Truss Spar, Cell Spar and Cell-truss Spar are identified to be well suited for these environments. Since the offshore fields are located at waters with more than 1000 m depth, Spar platforms can be successfully installed at these Malaysian deep water fields.

A novel hybrid MCDM approach for offshore wind farm site selection: A case study of Iran

“…Lately, the focus of wind power developers and energy planners has shifted towards the coastal zone in an increasing number of countries such as Denmark, UK, Germany and etc (Ladenburg, 2009). Many works performed in the feasibility study of OWF installation in various countries with related their criteria (Pantaleo et al, 2005;Manwell et al, 2007;Schillings et al, 2012;O'Keeffe and Haggett, 2012;Wieczorek et al, 2013;SalcedoSanz et al, 2013;Reubens et al, 2014;Martín Mederos et al, 2011;Veigas and Iglesias, 2013;Da et al, 2011;Chen, 2011;Zhixin et al, 2009;Madariaga et al, 2012;Mostafaeipour, 2010;Oh et al, 2012;Lee et al, 2013;Islam et al, 2012;Mani and Dhingra, 2013). The feasibility of wind power development depends on multi criteria like; wind resources and, especially, constructability offshore.…”

Non-linear FEM analysis of seismic induced pounding between neighbouring multi-storey structures

“…It is shown that constructing adjacent structures with equal floor heights and separation distances reduces the effects of pounding considerably. Study on seismic separation device has also been performed by several researchers [8][9][10][11]. Kasai and Maison [12] investigated the building pounding damage during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.…”

“…Jankowski [16] performed non-linear analysis for earthquake-induced pounding of two equal height structures with substantially different dynamic properties. This response analysis show that collisions have a significant influence on the behaviour of the lighter and more flexible building especially in longitudinal direction causing generous amplification of the response and lead to extensive permanent deformation due to yielding [17][18][19][20]. Associated with the possibility of seismic vulnerability, automated mitigation of responses is required to be assessed [21][22][23][24][25][26] in construction technology.…”

A Review in Oil Exploration and Production Waste Discharges According to Legislative and Waste Management Practices Perspective in Malaysia

“…Some of these additives introduce potentially toxic compounds into the fluids, which must be considered when the resulting wastes are managed. Due to depletion of reserves in numerous onshore locations, the exploration process in Malaysia is expanded to offshore deeper water [5]. Because of these, drilling waste from oil and gas exploration activities has led to a serious environmental issue that need to be considered and managed according to Malaysia's legislation act.…”