In preparation for putting TAG’s Sidewinder Production Facility into operation, it’s getting put through its paces with final review and testing. It was a gray day in Taranaki but the “views” looked good to us.
 An overview of the Sidewinder Plant from the north. |
 Sidewinder-1 wellhead with a tie-in to the Plant. The pipe comes out of wellhead, into the cellar, then heads underground about 20m to the plant site. |
 Our horizontal hydrocarbon tank receives free oil and stripped condensate from the gas stream, holding approximately 400 bbls that’s trucked out for sales. |
 The separator manifold system – she’s a thing of beauty – allows us to direct specific wells to either of our two inlet separators. |
 Somewhat less slick looking but no less important, this is our inlet-to-gas chromatograph. |
 Here are the guys running a final test on Inlet Separator #1. It’s looking good. |
 This is the backside of Inlet Separator #2. |
 TAG's Drilling and Completion Manager Jack Doyle inspects the meter skid piping. |
 The low temperature knock-out skid lowers gas temperature to -2C, which causes all the entrained condensate to condense and fall out for sales. That insures we’re shipping dry gas. |
 TAG's Facility Manager James Watchorn inspects the J/T valve on the low temperature separator skid. Hey James, how about a smile for the camera? |
 Heat-to-heat transfer units that warm the gas back up after we cool it to squeeze the condensate out. Gas must be warmed up before entering the pipeline to avoid hydrate freezing in the line. |
 James inspects the low temperature separator. |
 These are the Coriolis meters (U-meters) that actually measure the out-flowing gas to sales. |
 This is Vector's gas chromatograph at our site. They maintain this piece of equipment to insure TAG is shipping "Spec Gas" into their pipeline. |
 This is the meter skid - the cash register. It measures out-flowing gas with one last condensate stabilization tower to wring out the last bit of condensate that might be in the gas before TAG Oil ships it. |
 Last check before shipping gas: fill the pipeline up with water, pressure it up and make sure there are no leaks. There weren't! |
