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Automatic Design and Optimization of Natural Gas Plants
Automatic Design and Optimization of Natural Gas Plants
A strategy for process configuration design and debottlenecking of natural gas processing plants
based on turboexpansion is presented. The approach combines a rigorous process simulation
model and a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) optimization methodology that
embeds different expansion alternatives within a superstructure. A wide range of natural gas
mixtures with 6-25% of condensable components is studied in order to determine optimal plant
topology and operating parameters under different process conditions. Inlet feed gases with
varying CO2 content are also analyzed to evaluate the impact on plant design and operation.
Special attention is devoted to an actual gas mixture, currently processed in a large-scale ethane
plant in operation. Different turboexpansion configuration designs are further analyzed to
explore the possibility of operating in propane recovery mode.
* Author to whom correspondence is addressed. Fax: +54 In a typical ethane extraction plant, inlet gas is
91 883764. E-mail: prbrigno@criba.edu.ar. filtered and compressed. Thereafter, it is air cooled and
† E-mail: abandon@criba.edu.ar. dehydrated to avoid ice and hydrates formation. After
S0888-5885(96)00812-3 CCC: $14.00 © 1997 American Chemical Society
2716 Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 36, No. 7, 1997
Figure 1. Cryogenic sector superstructure: 1, gas-gas heat exchanger; 2, gas-gas exchanger (subcooler in gas-subcooled design); 3,
demethanizer side reboilers; 4, bottom reboiler; 5, demethanized product exchanger; 6, cold tank; 7, turboexpander; 8, subcooler; 9, high-
pressure column (8 and 9 only for two-stage demethanization); 10, demethanizer; 11, air coolers; 12, JT valves.
this conditioning, the gas feed is divided into two equal is then recompressed to pipeline pressure and delivered
streams, each of which is sent to a different cryogenic as sales gas. The product from the demethanizer
train for demethanization (see Figure 1). The bottom bottom can be further fractionated to produce pure
product from the demethanizers is mixed and sent to a ethane, propane, butanes, and natural gasoline. When
conventional separation process to obtain pure ethane, the fraction of condensable components present in the
pure propane, butanes, and natural gasoline. After heat feed gas is relatively low, the plant can be operated
exchanging with the entering gases, the top product without external refrigeration. Otherwise, mechanical
from the demethanizers (residual gas) is recompressed refrigeration is required in addition to the refrigeration
to pipeline pressure and delivered as sales gas. provided by the turboexpansion process.
The cryogenic sector constitutes the core of a low- It is important to note that compression and refrig-
temperature expander plant and consequently special eration constitute the main factors that regulate both
attention is focused on this sector. A more detailed capital and operating costs in this type of plant.
description of the basic and alternative turboexpansion Alternative Expander Plant Designs. The basic
processes is given below. expansion process (BTP) design is normally used for
Basic Turboexpansion Process. A typical turbo- lean natural gas and is limited to ethane recoveries of
expansion process (BTEP) is shown in Figure 1 by solid about 80% or less; larger expansion ratios are necessary
lines. The inlet gas is cooled by heat exchanging with for higher ethane recoveries, with a steep increase in
the residual gas (heat exchangers 1 and 2) and through recompression horsepower requirement. Besides, the
the demethanizer side and bottom reboilers (3 and 4) cold tank must usually be operated at very low temper-
and, eventually, with external refrigeration (heat ex- atures and high pressures, conditions that make phase
changer 14). The partially condensed feed gas is then separation and vapor-liquid equilibrium prediction very
sent to a vapor-liquid separator (cold tank 6). The difficult. Several expander plant designs have been
vapor is expanded through the turboexpander (7) to proposed to overcome these drawbacks. These alterna-
obtain the low temperatures required for high ethane tives include a gas-subcooled process, a gas-liquid-
recovery and is fed to the top of the demethanizer subcooled process, and a liquid-subcooled process. A
column (10). The liquid from the cold tank is directly detailed description of each scheme is given in Wilkin-
flashed into the demethanizer at its lower feed point. son and Hudson (1982). In the present work, a two-
The demethanizer is a low-temperature distillation stage demethanization process is also analyzed.
column that makes a separation between methane and A superstructure that embeds different alternative
ethane. Methane and lighter components, such as designs for the cryogenic sector of an expander plant is
nitrogen, constitute the top product, and ethane and shown in Figure 1. In this general flow diagram, the
heavier hydrocarbons comprise the main components in flowsheet associated with the basic expansion process
the bottoms. Carbon dioxide, which is intermediate in is presented in solid lines (y1 ) 1).
volatility between methane and ethane, is distributed In the gas-subcooled process (GSP), a fraction of the
between the top and bottom streams. As the outlet vapor from the cold tank is condensed and subcooled in
stream from the expander usually has two phases, the the heat exchanger 2 using the residual gas coming from
liquid phase is used as a reflux for the demethanizer. the demethanizer; the subcooled liquid is then flashed
The top product or residual gas cools the inlet gas and and fed to the top of the demethanizer column, as shown
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 36, No. 7, 1997 2717
in Figure 1 for y2 ) 1. The remaining vapor is expanded
through the turboexpander and fed to the middle of the
column.
In the gas-liquid-subcooled process (GLSP), the vapor
that comes from the cold tank is also divided into two
streams: one is expanded through the turboexpander
and the other is mixed with the liquid stream from the
cold tank, as is shown in Figure 1 for y3 ) 1. This
stream is then condensed and subcooled by heat ex-
changing with the residual gas and fed to the top of the
demethanizer. In this case, exchanger 2 can also be
used as a subcooler.
In the two-stage demethanization process (2-sDP), a Figure 2. Basic turboexpansion process profit dependence on cold-
major fraction of methane is removed in a prede- tank temperature.
methanizing column (9) that operates at a higher
pressure. The bottoms from this column are sent to the h constitutes the process mathematical model solved
demethanizer column (10) operating at a lower pressure, within an ad hoc simulator (specific for design or
where complete demethanization is achieved. A high debottlenecking), with appropriate procedures. Non-
ethane recovery is obtained in this way because the linear inequality constraints g represent process speci-
demethanizer can work at a lower pressure; there is also fications and bounds on equipment capacities. Purely
a lower energy consumption to recompress the residual integer constraints represent logical conditions.
gas, as about 80% of the feed gas constitutes the top The optimization program (Diaz and Bandoni, 1996)
stream from the higher pressure column. As shown in is an implementation of the outer approximation algo-
Figure 2 for y4 ) 1, this process adds two units to the rithm (Duran and Grossmann, 1986) that can interface
basic turboexpansion design, a new column and a heat a process simulator. The basic algorithm requires
exchanger (subcooler), requiring major piping modifica- successive solution of NLP subproblems (with fixed
tions as well. binary variables, i.e., fixed configuration) and mixed-
The addition of mechanical refrigeration to the pre- integer linear programming (MILP) problems that
ceding designs is represented in Figure 1 by y6 ) 1. overestimate the feasible region and overestimate (for
In the liquid-subcooled process (LSP), the liquid from maximization problems) the objective function. At the
the cold tank, which contains most of the heavier NLP step, the program interfaces both OPT (the NLP
hydrocarbons, is subcooled mainly by means of mechan- solver) and the process simulator in a feasible path
ical refrigeration (heat exchanger 14) and a portion is optimization procedure. In this context, the simulator
flashed across a Joule-Thomson valve into the top of is considered as a black box and each evaluation of
the demethanizer. The remaining portion of the stream dependent variables by the NLP solver requires an
is flashed and heat exchanged against the cold tank entire process simulation. Gradient information is
liquid for additional cooling (heat exchanger 13), and estimated numerically by finite differences using the
then it enters the demethanizer at the lowest feed point. forward difference formula. Consequently, one simula-
The design corresponds to y7 ) 1 in Figure 1. tion call is required for each point of the nonlinear
optimization and as many additional simulations as
3. Simulation and Optimization Strategies optimization variables must be performed for variable
perturbations. It is important to note that this proce-
Optimization Strategy. In order to set up a com- dure can be performed within acceptable CPU times
mon strategy to tackle design and debottlenecking because the simulator is very fast.
problems using similar tools, a general methodology Once the NLP is solved, function and gradient values
based on a MINLP optimization approach has been are available at the optimal NLP point. This informa-
developed. The objective function is the maximization tion is transferred to a linearization module where the
of the operation profit. In its most general way, the coefficients and right-hand sides corresponding to the
model can be formulated as follows: linearized nonlinear functions f and g are evaluated. The
following step is the construction of the MILP problem.
max f(x,y) Linearized coefficients and linear ones (if any) are
x,y
automatically arranged within the matricial equation
st Ap e b, pT ) [xT, yT] (the first row being the objective
function), which represents the problem and is updated
h(x,y) ) 0 at each MINLP major iteration. This matrix and its
right-hand side are then transferred to the MILP solver
g(x,y) e 0 through a dedicated subroutine for solving the corre-
sponding MILP problem. A detailed description of this
Ey e e interface is given in Diaz and Bandoni (1996).
For convex problems, the algorithm guarantees con-
y ∈ {0, 1}m, x ∈ Rn, xL e x e xU vergence to global optimum. For maximization prob-
lems, NLP solutions are lower bounds on the original
where vector x represents continuous optimization MINLP solution (since they do not correspond to the
variables and y corresponds to binary variables which optimal configuration) and MILP solutions are upper
represent discrete decisions, such as selecting one unit bounds for convex problems. Convergence occurs when
or another. both bounds cross. The use of a black box simulator
The optimization is performed by the integration of for function evaluation does not guarantee problem
a rigorous sequential modular simulator to a MINLP convexity, and outer approximations may cut off parts
optimization program. The set of nonlinear equations of the feasible region and converge to locally optimal
2718 Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 36, No. 7, 1997
Table 5. Optimal Design and Operating Conditions for Different Gas Feeds (Profits Are Reported for Both Cryogenic
Trains)
% C2+ binary var. process profit ($US/h) ethane recovery Pdem (bar)
23 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 LSP + ER 26 098 83.72 22.41
20 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2-sDP + ER 24 027 86.59 19.5
18 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2-sDP + ER 21 412 88.44 19.3
16 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 GSP + ER 18 783 87.51 23.1
14 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 GSP + ER 16 120 87.76 24
12 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 GSP + ER 13 398 88.41 24
10 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 GSP 10 586 89.36 24
7.6 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 GSP 7 697 89.77 24
6 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 GSP 4 830 89.16 24
5. Discussion of Results
Several studies have been performed with the previ-
ously described models, and the results are discussed Figure 6. Optimal profit dependence on inlet gas composition
below. for basic turboexpansion.
Optimal Design of Turboexpansion Plants. The A further analysis has been performed on each inlet
aim of this study has been to address the optimal design feed. Figure 6 shows the optimal profit for the basic
problem of an ethane extraction plant for a wide range turboexpansion process (BTEP) under different feed
of feed gas compositions. The MINLP strategy simul- compositions. This figure clearly shows the strong
taneously determines the optimal turboexpansion de- dependence of the optimal cryogenic plant profit on the
sign, the corresponding operating conditions, and whether richness of the natural gas mixtures. This variation
or not external refrigeration is required. Results cor- represents about 1 720 000 $US/yr per each 1% increase
responding to both cryogenic trains are reported in in the heavy-component composition of the feed gas.
Table 5; they show that the gas-subcooled process (GSP, In order to highlight optimal profit variations among
with or without external refrigeration) is better suited studied process configurations, Figure 7 shows the
for almost all gas feeds in the range under study, except results as differences with the profit of BTEP. It can
for the richer ones, which require the liquid-subcooled be noted that the liquid-subcooled process (LSP) is
process. better for the richer feeds, and this is so because it
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 36, No. 7, 1997 2721
Table 7. Values of Main Variables at the Initial and Optimum Points for the BTEP and at the Optimal Debottlenecking
Point (GSP) (Reported Values Refer to One Cryogenic Sector; Inlet Gas Flow Refers to the Entire Plant)
variable initial point (BTEP) BTEP optimum GSP optimum
Pct (bar) 58.40 56.35 58.31
Tct (K) 200.65 209.10 217.35
Pdem (bar) 20.00 18.00 18.00
Bdem (kmol/h) 1339.17 1580.36 1679.93
rotational speed (rpm) 4950 4739 4857
Div (%) 0.00 0.00 29.00
inlet gas flow (MMscm/day) 24.00 25.69 26.00
ethane recovery (%) 70.28 80.00 88.94
WTE (kW) 3066.53 3270.00 4079.00
profit ($US/h) 4229.64 4802.30 5126.40
binary variables 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
25.30% increase in the ethane production by simply Figure 10. Propane recovery dependence on propane purity in
bottom product.
relocating the heat exchanger 2 to be used as a sub-
cooler. Heat exchanger 1 is sufficient because less Table 9. Optimal Operating Conditions for Increasing
cooling is required by the feed stream, due to a higher CO2 Content in Feed for GSP
cold-tank operating temperature. Additionally, more feed I feed II feed III feed IV
horsepower is recovered in the turboexpander for the
same expansion ratio, also due to warmer conditions in nitrogen 0.830 0.827 0.826 0.817
CO2 0.602 1.545 2.118 2.829
the cold tank. However, it must be pointed out that methane 91.20 90.849 90.320 89.664
possible hydraulic limitations in the demethanizer ethane 4.417 3.835 3.812 3.784
column have not been taken into account in this study. propane and heavier 2.951 2.944 2.927 2.906
As can be noted in Table 7, the demethanizer pressure Tct (K) 235.21 237.55 231.54 230.00
at the optimum point corresponding to the GSP is 18 Pdem (bar) 18.00 21.46 22.91 27.09
bar as for the BTEP, while in Table 5 the optimum Tdt (K) 167.75 172.25 174.65 180.09
ethane recovery (%) 92.40 90.68 89.16 85.91
pressure for the GSP is 24 bar. The reason for this propane recovery (%) 99.15 98.80 98.46 97.57
behavior is that in design mode the compressor capital c1 bottoms (%) 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
costs must be included, and for each unit decrease in Div (%) 30 40 40 35
the demethanizer column pressure, the increase in the
total costs (due to larger recompression horsepower) is able values for a 22 MMscm/day plant for the 2s-DP
much larger than the increase in the benefit due to a (95.03% propane recovery) and the GSP (95.65% pro-
higher ethane recovery. On the other hand, in debottle- pane recovery). Propane recovery and the specification
necking mode, only compressor operating costs are upon the ethane/propane ratio in the bottoms are
considered. Consequently, for a decrease in the demeth- comparable to those reported by Limb and Czarnecki
anizer column pressure, the higher ethane recovery (1987) in a 0.7 MMscm/day Petroflux propane plant in
overcomes the cost increase due to the larger horse- Queensland, Australia.
power requirement, and consequently the optimum
Figure 10 shows that there is a steep increase in
favors a low demethanizer pressure.
propane recovery for ethane/propane ratios in the bot-
The outer approximation implementation performs
very well with these problems; when the current operat- toms between 0.02 and 0.05. As can be appreciated from
ing point (BTEP process current point) is selected as the figure, propane recovery remains above 95% for C2/
the initial point for the MINLP problem, the first MILP C3 ratios in the bottom higher than 0.15, and only 80%
problem of the outer approximation algorithm already propane recovery can be achieved with an ethane/
determines the best configuration and the entire MINLP propane ratio in the demethanizer bottoms of less than
problem converges in two major iterations 0.02.
Dual Mode Plant. It is interesting to analyze the Analysis of Natural Gas Mixtures with Increas-
possibility of designing a plant capable of operating in ing CO2 Contents. Different natural gas feeds with
either ethane recovery or propane recovery (also called varying CO2 contents have been analyzed to study the
ethane rejection) mode. If ethane demand is low, the impact on the maximization of ethane production.
likely operating mode for the NGL plant can be propane These compositions, ranging from 0.60 to 2.8% of CO2,
recovery. As the ethane recovery mode dictates the correspond to actual gas mixtures. As can be seen in
sizing and hence the cost of most of the major equipment Table 9, as CO2 content increases, higher pressures are
items, the two best designs for this operation mode, required in the demethanizer column to avoid CO2 solid
2-sDP and GSP, have been considered for operation in formation; consequently, ethane recovery decreases.
the propane recovery mode. Table 8 shows main vari- Solubility constraints become active as more acid (larger
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 36, No. 7, 1997 2723
6. Conclusions
A general approach for analysis, design, and debottle-
necking of NGL recovery plants has been presented. The
strategy has been applied to study a wide range of
natural gas compositions and turboexpansion designs.
Particular attention has been devoted to actual feed gas
mixtures with varying carbon dioxide content.
The design problem of an ethane extraction plant has
been addressed to maximize an economic objective;
different flowsheets and operating conditions have been
determined depending on the inlet gas composition.
Moreover, optimal conditions have been evaluated to
Figure 11. Solubility line and CO2 profile in upper stages of
demethanizer in liquid phase (feed I).
obtain the maximization of ethane production. The
optimal design is the gas-subcooled process for both
optimization objectives, but different optimal operating
conditions have been determined in each case.
When addressing the debottlenecking problem of an
existing NGL plant, rigorous simulation modules for the
compressors have been included, providing a realistic
insight of the trends in operating variables. Additional
optimization variables with respect to the design case
have been used and their impact on process behavior
has allowed the determination of different operating
points, such as the selection of a new inlet gas flowrate,
different from current conditions.
Additionally, different plant designs have been fur-
Figure 12. Solubility line and CO2 profile in upper stages of ther analyzed to evaluate their flexibility to work in
demethanizer in vapor phase (feed I). ethane rejection mode; i.e., the present strategy has
been used to tackle different economic scenarios: if
ethane demand is low, the plant can be operated as a
propane extraction plant.
Finally, the impact of increasing CO2 contents in the
inlet feed has been analyzed; the present approach has
shown that, as CO2 contents increase, solubility con-
straints become active and they are directly related to
the decrease in ethane recovery.
Consequently, the MINLP optimization strategy,
based on a rigorous simulator, has been an efficient tool
of evaluation of process alternatives.
Notation
Figure 13. Solubility line and CO2 profile in upper stages of
demethanizer in liquid phase (feed IV). Bdem ) demethanizer bottom product flowrate (one cryo-
genic sector), kmol/h
c1 bottoms ) methane compositions in demethanizer bot-
tom product, % molar
c1/c2 bottoms ) methane/ethane ratio in demethanizer
bottom product
c2/c3 bottoms ) ethane/propane ratio in bottom product
Div ) vapor stream fraction that does not go through the
turboexpander in alternative expansion designs, %
m ) number of components
n ) number of stages in the demethanizer column
Pct ) cold-tank pressure, bar
Pdem ) demethanizer top pressure, bar
Ppredem ) predemethanizer top pressure, bar
Figure 14. Solubility line and CO2 profile in upper stages of Tct ) cold-tank temperature, K
demethanizer in vapor phase (feed IV). Ttd ) demethanizer top temperature, K
Tbd ) demethanizer bottom temperature, K
CO2 composition) feeds are processed. The selected WTE ) compression energy recovered in the turboexpander,
design is a gas-subcooled process. kW
Figures 11-14 show CO2 concentration profiles in the
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