Advanced Gas Processing

A. Shahsavand
Chemical Engineering Department Faculty of Engineering Ferdowsi University of Mashad 2010

Feedstock & Product

Receives
crude oil associated gases from production units or

wellhead separators.

Produces

sale gas, Ethane (as

petrochemical feed stock), LPG (C3 C4) and light naphtha (C5+)

Onshore and Offshore NGL plant facilities

Onshore Associated Gases

Gas Compression Acid Gas Removal NGL Recovery Unit

Offshore Associated Gases Acid Gas incineration or

SRU

Sale Gas

C2

C3

C4

C5+

Condensate

NGL Recovery Unit

A
conventional natural gas liquid plant includes a separator that receives a cooled low pressure feed gas (heavy HC separation). The separator is coupled to an absorber (or distillation column) and a demethanizer. Refrigeration duty of the absorber and demethanizer are provided at least in part by expansion of a liquid portion of the cooled low pressure feed gas and an expansion of a liquid absorber bottom product. Propane recovery is at least 99 mol %.

Ethane Recovery
As
ethane recovery becomes increasingly economically attractive, various configurations have been developed to improve the recovery of ethane from natural gas liquids (NGL). Most commonly, numerous processes employ either cooling of feed gases via turbo expansion or a sub-cooled absorption process to enhance ethane recovery.

Typical NGL unit

Feed gas Slug Catcher Condensate Separator C2 Recovery Refrigeration & Compression C3 & C4 C5+ Refrigeration C5+ Recovery Dehumidification
Water

Sale Gas C2

LPG Absorber

Conventional NGL unit

NGL Recovery Unit Features

Low
Operating Costs: Less compression to operate and maintain. Feed Pretreatment: CO2 removal is not necessary, glycol injection for dehydration is adequate. Wide Pressure Range: 250 to 1,200 psig feeds without inlet gas compression. High Ethane Recovery: One pass ethane recovery can exceed to 96%. NGL Flexibility: One-line switching from high C2-plus to high C3-plus with simple controls. Inexpensive Metallurgy: Lowest temperature, limited by C3 refrigeration, permits the use of carbon steel metallurgy predominantly. Upgrading Refrigeration Plants : Add-on unit enhances propane recoveries from typical 30-55% to 96+% by processing cold separator gases.

Ideas

Can

we use new separation processes such as PSA or membrane instead of conventional Refrigeration process. These new processes are more energy efficient and may be attractive from economical point of view.

60 MMSCFD NGL Plant, Alberta, Canada (Start up: January 1998 )

Hawiyah NGL Recovery Project, Saudi Arabia

The
Hawiyah NGL Recovery Program produces 310,000 bbl/d of ethane and NGL products from around four billion SCFD of associated gas. This project is completed in early 2008. The contract valued at $1.2 billion This plant also produces 170,000 bbl/d of condensate, and 1,000 t/d of sulphur. Facilities at the plant, in addition to the four gasprocessing trains that perform gas dehydration, dewpoint control and sales-gas compression, include two gas sweetening and sulphur recovery trains, two condensate stabilizers and two sour-water strippers.

Supply and Demand

NIOC associated gas gathering systems

AMAK Project

Environmental Issues

AMAK Products

Economic Aspects
Annual Product Value: 210 MMUSD Total Cost : Payback period: 530 MMUSD 2 years

AMAK Gas Treating Unit

AMAK Compressor Station

Kharg NGL recovery unit

Kharg NGL recovery unit

Approximate Location

Approximate Location

Kharg NGL unit Project

Kharg Associated Gas Gathering Project

Onshore Acid Gas

303 MMSCFD
Containing Following Impurities:
H2S : 12.7 mole %

(38.5 MMSCFD) (16.7 MMSCFD)

CO2 : 5.5 mole % COS : 222 ppm RSH : 217 ppm RSR : 34 ppm

Offshore Acid Gas

297 MMSCFD
Containing Following Impurities:
H2S : 3.8

mole % ppm ppm ppm

(11.3 MMSCFD) (13.7 MMSCFD)

CO2 : 4.6 mole % COS : 88 RSH : 46 RSR : 4

Problems & Solution

80 MMSCFD Acid Gas Removed
H2S : 50 MMSCFD (2034 tone sulfur)
Problems: Warehousing Sales and Marketing,

CO2 : 30 MMSCFD (Emission To Atm.)

Problems: Greenhouse Gas, Environmental Concerns

Acid Gas Injection

Sweet Gas Sour Gas

AGR

Acid Gas

C&C

Disposal Well Pipeline Disposal Layer

T=40 C P=180 Bar

Acid Gas Injection

Injection Depth: 4500m under seabed Injection Time: 25 years Total Injection volume : 128 MMbbl THE BIGGEST ACID GAS INJECTION PLANT IN THE WORLD!

Economical aspect

Price Correlation Price Per Unit (2004)

Sales Gas Ethane Propane Butane Pentane Condensate 25 $/MSCM 65 $/Tone 405 $/Tone 406 $/Tone 30 $/Barrel 35 $/Barrel

Economical aspect
Annual product value: 720 MMUSD Onshore NGL facilities cost: 1200 MMUSD Onshore GC facilities cost: 67 MMUSD Offshore pipeline: 90 MMUSD Total Cost : Payback period: 1357 MMUSD 2 years

Sox Emission by Flares

Nox Emission by Flares

NOx and Sox emission Comparison

Siri NGL recovery unit

Siri NGL unit Project

Economical aspect

Siri Island Associated Gas Gathering Project

Economical Aspect
Annual product value: 180 MMUSD Onshore NGL facilities cost: 216 MMUSD Onshore GC facilities cost: 12 MMUSD Offshore pipeline: 72 MMUSD Total Cost : Payback period: 300 MMUSD 2 years

Environmental Aspect

Project Schedules (Jan 2005)

Siri Onshore NGL plant: 40 months (ongoing) Offshore pipeline project: Executed Offshore Gas compression platform: 12 months (ongoing)

Sirri NGL plant to be completed in two years (Jan 2007)

Sirri NGL Plant will collect 140 MMSCFD of associated gases, of which 40 mcf will be used to produce condensates. This is equal to the production of 12,000 barrels per day of condensates, project manager Mohammad-Reza Abrishami said: Operations to construct the plant have so far progressed by 20 percent and expected to come on stream over the next two years. Gases from the fields are to be sent to power plants at Qeshm and Kish, while the extracted gas condensates are to be exported. The gas transfer pipelines from Sirri to Qeshm and Kish have been completed in offshore part.

Canadian NGL Prices

Date
02/07 01/07 12/06 08/06 05/06 12/05

C3 ($/m3)
282.36 250.61 269.74 307.23 279.10 332.77

C3 (US/US gal.)
90.75 ( 40 US$/bbl) 80.65 88.95 103.44 93.63 107.60

C4 ($/m3)
245.00 247.90 255.00 380.48 345.16 334.03

Iranian NGL units

NGL 100, 200, 300 (Aghajari) NGL 400, 500, 600 (Ahwaz) NGL 700, 800, 900 (Ahwaz) NGL 1000, 1100, 1200 (Ahwaz) NGL 1300, 1400 (Ahwaz) NGL 1500 (Karanj)