Running SRUs at low throughput, effects and considerations

Khaleelullah Nizamuddin Syed

Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd. (GASCO)

Abdul Kader Al Kasem

UniverSUL Consulting

Doug Cicerone
Cicerone & Associates, LLC

ABSTRACT

Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd. (GASCO) – Habshan site has fourteen Sulphur Recovery Units (SRU)
with different configurations and efficiencies. The first two trains (built in 1986) are 3 stage Claus
units (recovery efficiency 97%), whereas the latest units commissioned in 2013 are Claus process
with TGTU (recovery efficiency 99.9%+) and others are CBA and SuperClaus processes with
efficiency of 99%. Based on the feed availability and prioritizing feed to higher efficiency units,
acid gas is distributed amongst these trains. As a result of this, some of these units are running
at low throughput.

Running at low throughputs may lead to challenges in plant operations and maintenance and
decreasing energy efficiencies. This paper outlines challenges that are encountered when
Habshan SRUs run at low throughput, such as controlling flow to the reaction furnace, sulphur
blockage in condensers (leading to higher pressure drop), and higher energy consumption in
incinerator. Other considerations such as mothballing low efficiency trains, co-firing
requirements and changing feed quality to SRUs will be discussed.

INTRODUCTION

GASCO Habshan Plant currently operates 14 sulphur recovery units. A number of different
sulphur recovery technologies are employed, including the modified Claus process, Cold Bed
Adsorption (CBA), SUPERCLAUS®, and amine-based Tail Gas Treating (TGT) using proprietary
FLEXSORB® solvent. A summary of the 14 SRUs is provided in TABLE 1.

Since Habshan 5 has the highest sulphur recovery, all efforts are aiming to maximize throughput
there. Although Habshan 5 has dedicated acid gas header, maximizing feed will be achieved by
routing sour gas feed to Habshan 5 plant as much as possible based on daily gas allocation plan.
All other units (10 units) are taking acid gas feed from a common header. The distribution
between these units depends on their sulphur recoveries and the availability of other SRUs.
Normally units 152/153 will be maximized first followed by Habshan 1&2 units and finally with
Habshan 0 units.
 TABLE 1 – GASCO Sulphur Recovery Facilities [3]
Unit Sulphur Recovery
Site No. SRE (%) Feed Technology
50
Habshan-0 97.0 Acid gas 3-stage Claus
51
52
53 98.8 1-stage Claus with
Habshan-1 Acid gas
54 2 parallel CBA beds
57 99.0
58 1-stage Claus with
Habshan-2 99.0 Acid gas
59 2 parallel CBA beds
152 Enriched acid gas
3-stage Claus with
Habshan-HGCE 99.0 with natural gas
153 1-stage SUPERCLAUS®
co-firing
550
2-stage Claus with
551 Acid gas with
Habshan-5 99.9 amine-based TGTU
552 natural gas co-firing
(FLEXSORB®)
553

EFFECTS OF RUNNING SRUs AT LOW THROUGHPUTS

In this section, possible effects (both advantages and disadvantages) on running SRUs at low
throughputs will be discussed. The main effects will be on reaction furnace performance and
control. Other equipments will be affected as well.

The following discussion is mainly for turndown condition. Since this paper will be focusing on
running GASCO SRUs at low throughputs (which is higher than turndown in most of the cases),
some of these effects will not be seen but they are still potential effects while running in low
throughputs.

 Combustion Air Blowers

Advantages

 None

Disadvantages

 Centrifugal blowers need a minimum air flow to prevent surge. The excess air is
blown-off at low throughput which leads to wasted energy (electricity or steam).
Inlet Guide Vanes can help reduce this inefficiency but won’t necessarily eliminate
it.
 Reaction Furnace

Advantages

 Residence time increases as throughput decreases. This helps increase sulfur

conversion and helps with the destruction of BTEX.

Disadvantages

 Butterfly valves typically do not control well below 30% of design flow, so precise
control of the air and acid gas flows to the Reaction Furnace below this limit can
be difficult. Controllers can be placed in manual to help stabilize flow, however
this can lead to poor control of the H2S:SO2 tail gas ratio. Split range control can
be used to get to 10% or below.
 Some Reaction Furnace burners won’t turn down below 30%. Operating a burner
below its turndown limit can cause damage as the flame backs up against the
burner face.
 Reaction Furnace operating temperatures decrease at low throughput
(particularly in smaller furnaces) as heat losses to ambient become significant.
This can reduce BTEX destruction.
 Skin temperatures decrease as the operating temperature decreases. This can
lead to low temperature acidic corrosion.
 Co-firing with fuel gas can help with most of these issues by increasing air flow and
Reaction Furnace temperatures.

 Condensers & Rundown Lines

Advantages

 None

Disadvantages

 Sulphur fogging can be an issue when operating condensers below their turndown
limit. Fogging occurs at low gas velocities when the sulphur does not condense
against the condenser tube walls. Instead submicron droplets are formed in gas
phase and carried through to the condenser outlet.
 Rundown lines are more prone to plugging at low sulfur flow rates. Catalyst
and/or refractory dust can accumulate since the liquid velocities are low.
 Rundown lines are also more sensitive to small disturbances in the steam jacket
heat transfer at turndown (inadequate insulation, rain storms, cold weather, etc.).
 Catalytic Converters (Claus, CBA and SuperClaus®)

Advantages

 Lower space velocities can increase sulphur conversion in the reactors.

 CBA cycle times can be increased which increases the overall recovery efficiency
by reducing the number of times the CBA reactors switch from lead to lag (the
most inefficient part of the CBA cycle).

Disadvantages

 Channeling of gas flow through the catalyst can reduce sulphur conversion at low
turndown.
 Heat losses to ambient become more significant which can lead to corrosion issues
(particularly at nozzles and manways). Insulation is important to minimize the
corrosion and steam tracing/coils can be added if the unit is to be run at turndown
for long periods.

 Reducing Gas Generator

Advantages

 None

Disadvantages

 Burner controls can be problematic at turndown (same as Reaction Furnace). In

extreme cases this can lead to oxygen breakthrough from the RGG causing catalyst
fire in the Hydrogenation Reactor.
 Damage to the burner can occur if operated below its minimum turndown (same
as Reaction Furnace).

 Hydrogenation Reactor

Advantages

 Lower space velocities can increase sulphur and SO2 conversion to H2S in the
reactor.

Disadvantages

 Channeling of gas flow through the catalyst can reduce sulphur and SO2
conversion at low turndown.
  Low temperature acid corrosion is typically less of a concern than in SRU catalytic
converters due to the much lower SO2 partial pressure in the Hydrogenation
Reactor.

 Quench and Amine

Advantages

 Increased gas/liquid contact time increases the H2S pickup in the amine system.

Disadvantages

 Trays will typically turn down to 40% to 50% liquid flow. This leads to excess liquid
flow when the gas flow falls below this limit, which causes excess energy usage in
the reboiler and pumps. Packing can have a similar limit.

 Incinerator

Advantages

 Residence time increases as throughput decreases. This increases the destruction

of all reduced sulfur species.

Disadvantages

 Burner controls can be problematic at turndown (same as Reaction Furnace).

Natural draft incinerators can be particularly difficult to control stack oxygen
content to the typical 2% minimum, leading to excess fuel gas usage.
 Damage to the burner can occur if operated below its minimum turndown (same
as Reaction Furnace). Incinerator burners typically will not turn down as low as
the SRU tail gas, leading to excess fuel gas usage.
 Stack temperatures can get cold at low rates particularly if there is a Waste Heat
Boiler. This can lead to stack corrosion and inadequate dispersal of the flue gases.

EFFECTS ON RUNNING SRUs AT HABSHAN PLANT

In this section, effects on running SRUs at Habshan Plant will be discussed. Most of the SRUs in
Habshan were designed for 30% turndown and data used in this paper is DCS data collected from
January 2015 to April 2016.

Units which are running on low throughputs are CBA (Cold Bed Adsorption) units most of the
time, therefore analysis will be focused on them. Figure 1 is showing the configuration of
Habshan CBA units.
The Habshan Gas Plant is equipped with six CBA SRU trains. The first three trains were started
up in 1996 and the others followed in 2001.

The basic configuration of the sulphur recovery units is fundamentally identical. That is each of
the units includes the following sections [1]:

 One Thermal Reaction Section

 One Catalytic Claus Conversion Section
 Two Stage CBA Section
 One Tail Gas Incineration Section
 One Sulphur Storage and Degassing Section

Figure.1 Typical CBA Process at Habshan Plant [1]

Data used in this paper is for CBA unit which was commissioned in 2001, this unit has six design
cases (different in flow and H2S concentration of acid gas feed) with sulphur recovery capacities
of 396 TPD to 733 TPD. The H2S concentration is varied in these cases from 35.9 to 62.9 mole%
with total feed flow rates from 26 Knm3/h to 47 Knm3/h

DCS data for the time period mentioned above were filtered to consider fixed H2S concentration
of 55 mole %. This will eliminate the effect of H2S concentration while feed is changing. The
variation of H2S concentration in Habshan SRUs was most of the time in the range of 50 to 57
mole %.

Feed Control:

Controlling the acid gas flow is a challenge at lower throughputs. In Figure 2, the acid gas feed
flow is shown; in lower feed flow the control valve was unstable and a lot of fluctuation is there.
Therefore in this particular day, acid gas was cut totally to replace valve positioner, solenoid and
relay after running for few days at low throughput. The unit was started with higher feed flow to
avoid such fluctuation again.

Operations also reported that reaction furnace flame scanner alarm was frequently coming at
low feed flows which indicates flame instability. Flame scanner has been adjusted to look to the
area of flame which will reduce alarms on flame scanner indications to avoid tripping the unit.

Figure.2 Acid Gas feed flow

For air control valves, it was unstable as well (trim air) therefore, it was kept in manual to avoid
this fluctuation as in Figure 3.

Figure.3 Combustion Air valve opening

Reaction Furnace:

Reaction furnace temperature is coming down with less feed flow as shown in Figure 4. The most
interesting point in this graph that there is difference in Reaction Furnace temperature for the
same feed flow. The reason behind this is mainly the calibration of the temperature
measurements before and after shutdown. Before shutdown temperatures were less than after
for same feed flow which was forcing operators to introduce fuel gas co-firing to maintain
temperature within the range required for BTEX destruction.

The temperature increase at lower feed flow is mainly due to fuel gas co-firing.

Figure.4 Reaction Furnace Temperature

RF Temp
1160
1140
1120
1100
1080
ºC

1060
1040
1020
1000
980
10 15 20 25 30 35
Feed Flow Knm3/h

In Figure 5, when feed flow become less than 15 Knm3/h, combustion air will not follow the same
trend of higher acid gas feeds. This will lead to higher than expected energy consumption in the
incinerator because of the additional tail gas flow from fuel gas firing in the Reaction Furnace as
we are going to see this in the Incinerator Performance effects.

In this figure also, fuel gas has been used always whenever feed is less than 15 Knm3/h but not
continuously with higher feed, for example, at feeds higher than 20 Knm3/h fuel gas firing was
rarely used.
 Figure.5 Combustion air and fuel gas co-firing flow

60 455

405
50
355
H2S concentration (mole %)

40 305

FG to RF (Nm3/h)
Air Flow Knm3/h

255
30
205

20 155

105
10
55

0 5
10 15 20 25 30 35
Feed Flow Knm3/h

Air Flow H2S Conc FG to RF

Reaction Furnace Skin Temperature:

Skin temperatures in reaction furnace are monitored in order to provide a first indication of
possible corrosion: low skin temperatures could lead to low temperature acid attack.

The skin temperature of Reaction furnace was affected when feed came down less than 22
Knm3/h. From Figure 6, the majority of data are above 150 ºC when feed flow is above 22 Knm3/h
whereas they are below this temperature for less acid gas feeds.

There are many skin temperature indications in this reaction furnace and most of them are not
affected much. The only one affected is which presented in Figure 6. This indication is in the
bottom from burner side.
 Figure.6 Reaction Furnace skin temperature

190

180

170

160
RF Skin Temp ºC

150

140

130

120

110

100
10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Feed Flow Knm3/h

Reaction Furnace in this unit is equipped with thermal shroud to keep the metal temperature
between the desired temperature ranges. The louvers in this shroud are intended to be closed
slightly to increase temperatures and open them slightly to decrease temperatures. This need
operators to keep monitoring skin temperature and keep them closed whenever feed flow is less
and especially when ambient temperature is low (below 25ºC).

The skin temperature was not a concern in the past (before Habshan 5 commissioning on 2013)
where most of the units where running on maximum throughput but they become a concern
when these units run in low acid gas feeds.

Condensers

While running at low throughputs, there will be a danger of plugging in condensers and rundowns
working at low temperatures. Catalyst and/or refractory dust can accumulate also as result of
low liquid velocity.

Many units at Habshan are running at low throughput without having pluggage, so it’s more
related to precautions taken while running at low feed flow.

There was a case at Habshan where reaction furnace pressure increased significantly as in figure
7.

A pressure survey was carried out and most probably this was happening due to a partial plug in
CBA Condenser First Pass. The plant pressure drop was increasing during the heat-up steps
because condenser sees the peak sulfur flow during this time. The pluggage in the condenser
causes it to partially flood with sulfur which increases the backpressure on the SRU. The
operators are reducing throughput during the heat-up steps because of the increased pressure
drop. The increased pressure drop is not caused by running the unit at low throughput directly
but as result pluggage in the unit; the operators are turning down the unit because of the
pressure drop.

Figure.7 Capacity Ratio Trend

10

9
Capacity Ratio = Actual(Press/Flow^2) /

7
Design(Press/Flow^2)

While the increased pressure drop is not a result of running the plant at turndown, it is a common
reason for operators to turn down the plant if they have pluggage.

Incinerator Performance

When feed flow becomes less than 25 Knm3/h, the amount of energy per unit of feed increased
and maintaining O2 less than 4 mole % in stack will become a challenge as in Figure 8.
 Figure.8 Incinerator fuel gas and Oxygen in stack

120 20

18
Nm3/h FG to Incini / Knm3/h AG Feed

100
16

14

Mole % O2 in stack
80
12

60 10

8
40
6

4
20
2

0 0
10 15 20 25 30 35
Feed Flow Knm3/h

Incin FG O2 in Stack

UPSTREAM CONSIDERATIONS

 Feed stream preheat: All Habshan SRU’s are equipped with air/acid gas preheaters
because they have lean acid gas design case. The key design feature is to maintain thermal
reaction temperature (to avoid the instability of burner flame and destroy hydrocarbon
based acid gas components).

The use of preheaters in addition to high intensity burners will improve acid gas feed
processing especially while running in low throughputs.

Most of preheaters in Habshan plant are indirect type by employing high pressure steam
as heating medium. Maximum temperature can be achieved through these preheaters is
225 to 235 ºC.

While running SRUs in low throughputs, it’s important to maximize outlet temperatures
of air/acid gas preheaters to reduce chances of SRU trip due to flame instability and to
increase reaction furnace temperature for better destruction of hydrocarbon based acid
gas components (BTEX) and this may also reduce co-firing requirements.
 Co-firing with fuel gas: In this method, a plant fuel gas stream is added to the acid gas
feed stream in the hope of substantially increasing the heating value of the furnace feed
gas. In principle this method can be very effective, however, there are several significant
disadvantages which may limit the usefulness of this approach [2].

In GASCO Habshan SRUs Operation, whenever acid gas feed flow is lower than ~40% of
design capacity, fuel gas co-firing is used.

Co-firing fuel gas introduces a problem: CS2 production in the furnace is roughly
proportional to the amount of fuel gas added. Recovery would suffer unless nearly all CS2
is hydrolyzed in the first converter.

 Mothballing SRUs: In order to maximize feed flow to running SRUs and reduce operational
costs of running SRUs at Habshan plant, the lowest sulphur recovery units 50/51 were
mothballed. So, a complete long term mothballing was prepared according to ADNOC and
GASCO procedures.

The entire unit was divided to eight loops and long term shutdown procedure was
followed for making system sulphur free. Based on the loops identified, about 40 blinds
were installed. Reaction furnace was opened and about 35 Kgs of Silica gel were kept
inside before boxing up.

These two units were running with minimum feed of 24 – 30 Knm3/h. After mothballing,
this amount of acid gas was distributed to other SRU trains. By doing this, emission
reduced because of lower sulphur recovery in these two units, feed increased to other
units and it was contributed to energy conservation.

 Acid Gas Enrichment: Acid gas enrichment (AGE) is a method used to upgrade low-quality
off-gas from treating units to higher-quality Claus plant feed. The process objective is to
maximise CO2 slip and minimise the H2S leak into vent gas from the system, thereby
producing a gas enriched in H2S to the greatest extent possible.

The most common method to enrich is by using a separate absorber for treating the low-
grade acid gas stream coming from the regenerator. The AGE system is designed to
increase the H2S concentration in the acid gas to a typical target value of 50%. This
increases reaction furnace temperatures and flame stability.

For the case of low feed flow, acid gas enrichment will help in getting higher temperature
for BTEX destruction and will make reaction furnace flame more stable.

In GASCO Habshan, there is only one AGE unit with MDEA as solvent and the H2S design
concentration in the enriched gas is 41 mole % (H2S in feed gas is ~12 mole %). This
enriched acid gas will be injected to the common header and will be processed mainly in
the two SuperClaus units. Therefore it will not be helpful directly for the CBA units which
are running at low feed flow.
 There were some cases where AGE bypassed and acid gas become so lean (~36 mole %)
and co-firing was there even at higher unit feed.

 Oxygen Enrichment: Oxygen enrichment is well known for SRU capacity enhancement
based on the principle of approximately 65 to 70% of the hydrogen sulfide entering the
sulphur plant is removed as liquid sulphur in the first sulphur condenser. The remaining
gas flowing through the Claus sulphur plant is primarily nitrogen, which enters with the
combustion air. The equipment must be sized to accommodate this nitrogen. Adding
oxygen is the equivalent of removing this nitrogen.

Using oxygen enrichment can help when running SRU at low throughput by improving
reaction furnace performance but this will lead to reduced mass flow which may make
the situation worse if burner has low turndown ratio and it will increase the probability
of channeling in converters and lower gas velocity in condenser tubes.

However, none of Habshan SRUs are designed with Oxygen enrichment, therefore this
option can’t be investigated and need more study.

CONCLUSIONS

There are many effects on SRUs while running at low throughputs. Some of these effects are
resulting in reduced operating and maintenance challenges and increased energy consumption.
Sometime these effects are misleading operators who are running the plant. For example, at acid
gas concentration of 55 mole %, preheating feed streams to 235 º C will be enough to get reaction
furnace temperature above 1050 º C (for BTEX destruction), whereas temperature indications are
showing less temperature either because they are faulty and not calibrated for long time or
because they are reading refractory temperature. In such conditions, where flame scanners will
be unstable, fuel gas co-firing will likely be admitted to reaction furnace to increase temperature
and stabilize the flame.

This results in extra fuel gas consumption and will increase the possibility of soot formation on
the catalyst.

Understanding the effects of running SRUs at low throughputs will help Operators to identify the
main causes of unstable conditions and will help in energy conservation especially in reaction
furnace where flame scanners may give instable flame indication.

Managing acid gas allocation among many SRUs (Habshan case) is an important factor while
running at low throughputs. It’s important also to make sure they are running above feed flow
value that can effect SRU a lot in terms of smooth operation, energy efficiency and environmental
impact.

NOMENCLATURE

°C degrees Celsius H2S hydrogen sulphide

ADNOC Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Kg Kilogram
AGE acid gas enrichment mol% mole percent
AGRU acid gas removal unit SRU sulphur recovery unit
Barg bar gauge SRE sulphur recovery efficiency
BFW boiler feed water SO2 sulphur dioxide
BTEX benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene TGTU tail gas treating unit
CBA Cold Bed Adsorption
DCS distributed control system
GASCO Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd.

REFERENCES

1. A. Alkasem, J. Al Marzouqi, Mohamed Salem Al Matroushi “Lessons Learned over 20 Years of Sub-
Dewpoint SRU Operation in UAE” Presented at the 2nd Annual Brimstone Middle Eastern Sulfur
Recovery Symposium, May 2016, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

2. Hydrocarbon Destruction In the Claus SRU Reaction Furnace, Bruce Klint, P.Eng, Sulphur Experts Inc.,
50th Annual Laurance Reid Gas Conditioning Conference, University of Oklahoma, February 27, 2000.