Subpart W—Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems
§98.230 Definitions of the source categories for industry segments.
Offshore petroleum and natural gas production is any platform structure, affixed temporarily or permanently to offshore submerged lands, that houses equipment to extract hydrocarbons from the ocean or lake floor and that processes and/or transfers such hydrocarbons to storage, transport vessels, or onshore. In addition, offshore production includes secondary platform structures connected to the platform structure via causeways or walkways, storage tanks associated with the platform structure and floating production storage and offloading equipment.
Natural gas processing plants are designed to separate and recover natural gas liquids and/or other non-methane gases and liquids from a stream of produced natural gas using equipment performing one or more of the following processes: Oil and condensate removal, water removal, separation of natural gas liquids, sulfur and carbon dioxide removal, fractionation of natural gas liquids, or other processes, and also the capture of CO2 separated from natural gas streams for delivery outside the facility. This source category also includes all residue gas compression equipment owned or operated by the natural gas processing plant, whether inside or outside the processing plant fence.
Onshore natural gas transmission compression means all compressors that move natural gas at elevated pressure from production fields or natural gas processing facilities in transmission pipelines to natural gas distribution pipelines or into storage. In addition, transmission compressor station includes equipment for liquids separation, natural gas dehydration, and tanks for the storage of water and hydrocarbon liquids. Residue (sales) gas compression operated by natural gas processing facilities are included in the onshore natural gas processing plant category and are excluded from this category.
Underground natural gas storage means subsurface storage, including depleted gas or oil reservoirs and salt dome caverns that store natural gas that has been transferred from its original location for the primary purpose of load balancing (the process of equalizing the receipt and delivery of natural gas); natural gas underground storage processes and operations (including compression, dehydration and flow measurement, and excluding transmission pipelines); and all the wellheads connected to the compression units located at the facility.
LNG storage means onshore LNG storage vessels located above ground, equipment for liquefying natural gas, compressors to capture and re-liquefy boil-off-gas, re-condensers, and vaporization units for re-gasification of the liquefied natural gas.
LNG import equipment means all onshore or offshore equipment that receives imported LNG via ship transport, stores LNG, re-gasifies LNG, and delivers re-gasified natural gas to a natural gas transmission or distribution system. LNG export equipment means all onshore or offshore equipment that receives natural gas, liquefies natural gas, stores LNG, and transfers the LNG via ocean transportation to any location, including locations in the United States.
Natural gas distribution means the distribution pipelines (not interstate pipelines or intrastate pipelines) and metering and regulating at city gate stations that physically deliver natural gas to end users. This category excludes all customer meters and the infrastructure and pipelines delivering natural gas directly to major industrial users and "farm taps" upstream of the local distribution company inlet.
Onshore petroleum and natural gas production equipment means all structures associated with wells (including compressors, generators, or storage facilities), and portable non-self-propelled equipment (including well drilling and completion equipment, workover equipment, gravity separation equipment, auxiliary non-transportation-related equipment, and leased, rented or contracted equipment) used in the production, extraction, recovery, lifting, stabilization, separation or treating of petroleum and/or natural gas (including condensate). This equipment also includes associated storage vessels and measurement and all enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations using CO2, and all petroleum and natural gas production located on islands, artificial islands, or structures connected by a causeway to land, an island, or artificial island.