Leading Edge: capturing gas before the flare-stack [NGW Magazine]
It said June 18 that Edge offers "the first viable route to market for stranded gas reserves, and a revenue generating alternative to flaring or venting associated gas from oil production.
Edge began on-well-site LNG production in the US on May 7, accessing Marcellus gas in Pennsylvania, and making truck-delivered LNG sales to its first customers. To date, it said, Edge has delivered over 30,000 gallons of LNG (114 m³) to a delivery point at a New England gas utility over 300 miles away from the Marcellus production site.
Edge Cryobox units are designed to be quickly and easily connected, and disconnected, from feedstock gas wells. Units are also self-powered using produced gas, removing the need for a grid connection.
Edge CEO Mark Casaday said: "It is estimated that stranded wells account for up to 60% of global reserves, and up to 20% of those drilled in Marcellus, showing the scale of this untapped resource."
He told NGW that Edge has two cryogenic tanks at its disposal now, “but we see this growing by 50-100 units each year. The liquefaction technology is not new but this is the first time that miniaturised LNG technology has been used in this way. This proves the case, and the first one of anything is always hardest as you have to persuade customers of the value.”
Edge does not sell Cryobox, he said: “We offer two types of commercial operation. Oil producers can pay us a tolling fee and recycle gas for power generation or drilling purposes at other sites, meaning no diesel is used. This also represents a big cost saving. That is the model for the Permian or the Bakken shales.
“The alternative is that producers use our LNG plants at the wellpad to liquefy output and replace pipelines if capacity or connection costs are too high or there is a bottleneck. Cryobox liquefies the gas and then fills up the 40-ft ISO containers.”
Casaday said the economics even make sense on trips to Rhode Island, on the east coast. “We can fill a tank up at 1mn m³/day and load it on a trailer and send it off to the customer and start work filling the next one. Filling them up takes about 24 hours. Cryobox can start up in 18 minutes, and there is no boiloff.”
LNG deliveries to the northeast would once have been the function of multi-billion-dollar fixed liquefaction assets, with all of the extra costs associated with that kind of peak shaving operation. But this model still makes a profit even after a 600-mile round trip by trailer, he said.
Its customer is is drilling wells in the Marcellus basin, Lycoming County, Northern Pennsylvania, but we are also looking at shipping to the St Laurence Seaway, so it can deliver LNG to Montreal.
He said Edge started off in Argentina, with tight oil in the Vaca Muerta and now the company is working on a deal in Nigeria.
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