Natural Gas Flaring Management System: A Novel Tool for Sustainable Gas Flaring Reduction in Nigeria

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have reviewed the manuscript entitled "Natural Gas Flaring Management System: A Novel Tool for Sustainable Gas Flaring Reduction in Nigeria". This topic is interesting and I recommend to publish in applied science after some revision.

Please show the novelty in the abstract. 
The authors need to show the hypnosis at the end of the introduction.
Where is the discussion?
The conclusion is long. Please summarize it.

1. What is the main question addressed by the research? 

the aim of this paper was to develop a systematic framework and management tool to enable the reduction of routine gas flaring through ANG utilization while promoting the economic benefit of ANG utilization and in so doing minimizing the emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was met through the successful achievement of the various objectives set out.  

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field?

This topic is related to the field. This topic is very important to solve a big problem.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?

This paper set out to manage or effectively reduce ANG flaring by developing and applying a working ANG flaring management tool that integrated a techno-economic analysis for the selection of appropriate ANG utilization techniques to determine their technical and economic feasibilities and led to the development of a routine ANG flaring management framework unique to Nigeria which was then applied to develop an ANG flaring management tool, the first of its kind prototype (the first step towards a decision aid, but it is not yet a decision aid) in Nigeria that incorporates field data to provide real-time ANG utilization outputs for an investment decision.   

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?

The work is well conducted and they have performed a good study. However, The incorporation of dynamic state simulations that incorporate high levels of detailed modeling encourage significant reductions of high CAPEX and provide high levels of process analysis should be investigated for the tool.   

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?

This was achieved by developing the necessary process models, developing the capital investment statement and then a summary of total production costs. The development of a Routine ANG Flaring Management Framework (RAFMF) was then feasible.   

6. Are the references appropriate? Yes

 

Author Response

I have reviewed the manuscript entitled "Natural Gas Flaring Management System: A Novel Tool for Sustainable Gas Flaring Reduction in Nigeria". This topic is interesting and I recommend to publish in applied science after some revision.

Please show the novelty in the abstract.

A statement has been added to the abstract to show this.

 
The authors need to show the hypnosis at the end of the introduction.

A statement has been added to the introduction to demonstrate this.

Where is the discussion?

The discussion and the results were presented in the third section.

The conclusion is long. Please summarize it.

As succinctly as possible, the conclusion has now been condensed.

1. What is the main question addressed by the research? 

The aim of this paper was to develop a systematic framework and management tool to enable the reduction of routine gas flaring through ANG utilization while promoting the economic benefit of ANG utilization and in so doing minimizing the emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the successful achievement of the various objectives set out.  

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field?

This topic is related to the field. This topic is very important to solve a number of big problem.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?

This paper manages or effectively reduce ANG flaring by developing and applying a working ANG flaring management tool that integrated a techno-economic analysis for the selection of appropriate ANG utilization techniques to determine their technical and economic feasibilities. This results in the development of a routine ANG flaring management framework unique to Nigeria which was then applied to develop an ANG flaring management tool, the first of its kind prototype (the first step towards a decision aid, but it is not yet a decision aid) in Nigeria that incorporates field data to provide real-time ANG utilization outputs for an investment decision.   

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?

The work is well conducted and they have performed a good study. However, the incorporation of dynamic state simulations that incorporate high levels of detailed modeling encourage significant reductions of high CAPEX and provide high levels of process analysis should be investigated for the tool.   

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?

Yes, this was achieved by developing the necessary process models, developing the capital investment statement and then providing a summary of total production costs. The development of a Routine ANG Flaring Management Framework (RAFMF) was then feasible.   

6. Are the references appropriate? 

Yes.

thanks for all the above suggestions, and have updated in the revised version.

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, research efforts have been paid to the established a management framework (using a flowchart decision tree) and models to provide a user-friendly ANG flaring tool (using a MATLAB graphical front end user interface with back-end ASPEN HYSYS thermodynamic models). This was combined with techno-economic models for Liquefied natural gas, Gas-to-Methanol, and Gas-to-Wire ANG utilisation options. The results, considering both economic and technical factors, showed the choice of Liquefied Natural Gas for Field Y was best due to its proximity to the pipeline infrastructure and its cost effectiveness, and the availability of a high demand LNG market of that area.

The introduction provides sufficient background and include all relevant references and all the references listed are relevant to the research. The research design is appropriate and the methods are adequately described. The manuscript can accepted for publication with minor revisions.  Here are several comments need the author’s attention. This paper can be accepted after the authors further clarify some issues in the paper that reader can easily understand it.

1. The authors have obtained a large amount of data but the analysis is very superficial and the authors are advised to analyses and discuss it in the context of the literature.

2. The font on the Figures 4, 5 and 7 is to small and it is suggested to reduce the Figures 4-8 and 10-13.

3. The chapter on conclusions requires reformulation. Additionally, attention should be paid to the results included in the paper.

 I suggest that the paper be accepted with minor revision.

Author Response

In this study, research efforts have been paid to the established a management framework (using a flowchart decision tree) and models to provide a user-friendly ANG flaring tool (using a MATLAB graphical front end user interface with back-end ASPEN HYSYS thermodynamic models). This was combined with techno-economic models for Liquefied natural gas, Gas-to-Methanol, and Gas-to-Wire ANG utilisation options. The results, considering both economic and technical factors, showed the choice of Liquefied Natural Gas for Field Y was best due to its proximity to the pipeline infrastructure and its cost effectiveness, and the availability of a high demand LNG market of that area.

The introduction provides sufficient background and include all relevant references and all the references listed are relevant to the research. The research design is appropriate and the methods are adequately described. The manuscript can accepted for publication with minor revisions.  Here are several comments need the author’s attention. This paper can be accepted after the authors further clarify some issues in the paper that reader can easily understand it.

1. The authors have obtained a large amount of data but the analysis is very superficial and the authors are advised to analyses and discuss it in the context of the literature.

A statement has been added to expand upon the data analysis presented in section 2.1. In addition, the appendix now includes the raw data collected from DPR and the computed average annual volume of gas produced and flared.

2. The font on the Figures 4, 5 and 7 is to small and it is suggested to reduce the Figures 4-8 and 10-13.

All suggested alterations have been implemented for clarity

3. The chapter on conclusions requires reformulation. Additionally, attention should be paid to the results included in the paper.

The conclusion has now been reworked while aiming to be succinct as possible.

 I suggest that the paper be accepted with minor revision.

The authors thank the reviewer for their comments.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I recommend this paper can be accepted in this form