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*Registration deadline extended to 4:00 PM, Monday, January 12, 2009* Upcoming WebCAST seminar entitled: " OPTIMAL DESIGN AND OPERATION OF NATURAL GAS VALUE CHAINS" By Professor Paul I. Barton, MIT Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 2-4 pm (EST) Dial-in from the comfort of your office to hear the presentation Deadline to Register: 4:00 PM, Monday, January 12, 2009 (details at http://www.castdiv.org/WebCAST.htm) Abstract Natural gas contributes roughly 20% of world energy consumption. Natural gas reserves are plentiful and natural gas produces less CO2 per unit of energy generated than any other hydrocarbon. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) segment is growing very rapidly and is enabling the emergence of a global natural gas market. Natural gas value chains have very distinctive features arising from the low volumetric energy density of natural gas, and the significance of gas quality and pressure in supply chain operations. Gas infrastructure investments can be risky due to the high capital and specificity of the infrastructure, leading to complex ownership and contractual agreements amongst multiple parties to manage this risk. This talk will present two case studies applying optimization formulations to the design and operation of natural gas value chains. Short-term operational planning in upstream natural gas supply chains can play an important role in ensuring reliable supplies, consistent fulfillment of customer requirements and efficient management of production and transportation infrastructure. A real world case study involving the Sarawak Gas Production System (SGPS), located in East Malaysia and operated by Sarawak Shell, is presented to demonstrate a short-term (8-12 weeks) production allocation model and optimization framework for the upstream natural gas supply chain. The second case study involves the design of a novel liquefied energy chain for the exploitation of remote offshore natural gas combined with CO2 capture and sequestration with enhanced oil recovery. Here optimization is used to design novel offshore and onshore subambient processes required to implement the proposed supply chain. Bio-Sketch: Professor Paul I. Barton [log in to unmask] Paul Barton is the Lammot du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, where he has been since 1992. He received his Ph.D. from the Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial College, London University in 1992. He has held Visiting Professor appointments at CNRS-ENSIC, Nancy, France and EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. He has industrial experience with BP and Air Products, and has consulted for major corporations including Dow Chemical, Alstom Power and Aspen Technology. In 2004 he was awarded the Outstanding Young Researcher Award by AIChE's CAST Division. Barton's research interests include hybrid discrete/continuous dynamic systems; numerical analysis of ordinary differential, differential-algebraic and partial differential-algebraic equations; sensitivity analysis and automatic differentiation; global, mixed-integer and dynamic optimization theory and algorithms; and open process modeling software. Some of the applications his group is currently focusing on include energy systems engineering, continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing and organic electronic devices. He served as Director of AIChE's CAST Division from 2001-2004 and is currently a subject editor for the journal /Optimal Control Applications and Methods/. He is author or co-author of over 80 articles in refereed journals. He has been very active in the design and the development of process modeling software, having been the original author of gPROMS, and having led the development of ABACUSS/JACOBIAN and DAEPACK at MIT, all of which are now commercial products widely used in industry. -- Mayuresh V. Kothare (WebCAST chair of the CAST division) R. L. McCann Professor Chemical Process Modeling and Control Research Center Department of Chemical Engineering Lehigh University, D322 Iacocca Hall 111 Research Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015, U.S.A. Tel: (610) 758 6654; Fax: (610) 758 5057 e-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.lehigh.edu/~mvk2