Advanced Gas Processing

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

Receives associated gases from

crude oil 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 Offshore
Associated Associated
Gases Gas Compression Gases

Acid Gas
Acid Gas Removal incineration
or SRU
NGL Recovery Unit

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 Slug Condensate Dehumidification
gas Catcher Separator
Water
Sale Gas C2
Recovery
C2 LPG Absorber
Refrigeration
& Compression
Refrigeration
C3 & C4 C5+
C5+ Recovery
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 gas-
processing trains that perform gas dehydration, dew-
point 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 : 530 MMUSD
Payback period: 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)

 CO2 : 5.5 mole % (16.7 MMSCFD)
 COS : 222 ppm
 RSH : 217 ppm
 RSR : 34 ppm
 Offshore Acid Gas

297 MMSCFD
Containing Following Impurities:

 H2S : 3.8 mole % (11.3 MMSCFD)

 CO2 : 4.6 mole % (13.7 MMSCFD)
 COS : 88 ppm
 RSH : 46 ppm
 RSR : 4 ppm
 Problems & Solution

80 MMSCFD Acid Gas Removed

H2S : 50 MMSCFD (2034 tone sulfur)
 Problems: Sales and Marketing,
Warehousing
CO2 : 30 MMSCFD (Emission To Atm.)
 Problems: Greenhouse Gas, Environmental
Concerns
 Acid Gas Injection
Sweet Gas

Sour Gas AGR Acid Gas

C&C
T=40 °C
Disposal
Well P=180 Bar

Pipeline

Disposal
Layer
 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 25 $/MSCM

Ethane 65 $/Tone
Propane 405 $/Tone
Butane 406 $/Tone
Pentane 30 $/Barrel
Condensate 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 : 1357 MMUSD
Payback period: 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 : 300 MMUSD
Payback period: 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 C3 ($/m3) C3 (US¢/US gal.) C4 ($/m3)

02/07 282.36 90.75 ( 40 US$/bbl) 245.00
01/07 250.61 80.65 247.90
12/06 269.74 88.95 255.00
08/06 307.23 103.44 380.48
05/06 279.10 93.63 345.16
12/05 332.77 107.60 334.03
 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)