Anticipated problem

a) Problem Details:
Natural gas must be dehydrated to remove water vapor. Water vapor causes problems in the natural gas processing specially in the
NGL application as its causes the formation of hydrates, over saturation of natural gas, and corrosion of equipment. In the NGL plants
the natural gas is cooled to a very low temperature which reach -90C in order to extract the natural gas derivatives so if there is water
vapor in the natural gas that make hydrate and restrictions to the cooling limit and that Hydrates cause freezing and blocking of
pipelines, heat exchangers, valves, and other capillary tubes and equipment, the molecular sieve dehydration is the unit which is
responsible to achieve the required dryness of natural gas by remove all the water content to a limit 0.1 ppm (0.00001%) or less.
The extraction of propane plus from the natural gas require to cool the natural gas to a temperature -80C but the modification of the
plant and construct a new fractionation unit in order to extract the ethane require to increase the cooling of the natural gas and move to
more cryogenic area reach -96C and that’s require to make the natural gas ultra-dry, consequently, it must be modified the type of
exist molecular sieve to another type capable to absorb and remove the water to 0.01 ppm instead.

The NGL plant was in a planned short shutdown in order to carry out different activities, one of these activities was the replacement of
the exist molecular sieve of the dehydration package as the existing one was deteriorated and become not efficient and also take this
chance to change to the new type to get more dryness of natural gas, the shutdown was completed safely and the plant prepared to the
startup at Aug,18 2020, 8:20 am, the dehydration unit was pressurized to about 63 bars and after running the plant, it was noticed that
the differential pressure across the dehydration bed is ramping up with abnormal rate and after one week it reach a very high value and
exceed the warning limit and also there is a high differential pressure also across the downstream filter, so the unit was isolated and
depressurized to contain the gas release; meanwhile all necessary actions were taken and a team has been formulated to start the
investigation and get the root causes and the recommendation.

b) Problem solving methodology and analysis details:

Cause-and-Effect Diagram (fishbone) has been used to collect all the possible root causes and understand the relation between failure and its causes, and it’s also
a result of a brainstorming of the most effective causes.
 Machine Measurement Man
Design Fault Carryover Contaminants Operating Condition

Over pressure

Bad handling of the mole sieve during the filling stage.

Thermal stresses due to using regeneration Temp. over the limit.

There are glycol

Inadequate controlling / monitoring system. contaminants on the mole
sieve.
Flow rate fluctuation during normal operation

Failure/crushing of molecular sieve of the dehydration package / high ∆P acros

Start-up procedure against

Low crush strength value
Vendor recommendations

Water adsorption capacity of the mole sieve less than the specs.
cooling procedure of the bed against vendor recommendations

The chemical composition of the supplied mole sieve was not as in the offer.
Initial conditioning of mole sieve vs the vendor recommendations

Depressurization /Blow down

procedure against vendor recommendations

Manufacturing Operating Regime

Material Method
c) Recommendations for prevention of similar cases:

1. Formal instruction for all the employee to stick to the vendor recommendation and not ignore or omit any step.
2. Good selection of the contracting company which perform the replacing of the catalyst/molecular sieve with a good supervision and follow up during
perform the dumping and filling the catalyst and molecular sieve.
3. Review the design and the performance of the filter coleascer to eliminate the glycol and contaminants scape.
4. Factory attending the performance tests of the catalyst/molecular sieve before shipping it.
5. Assure the quality for the receiving material.
6. Awareness session for the operation staff to study the learned lessons of this case to be applied in similar cases.