Petroleum Science and Technology

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Predicting the compressibility factor of natural gas

Navid Azizi & Reza Mosayebi Behbahani

To cite this article: Navid Azizi & Reza Mosayebi Behbahani (2017) Predicting the
compressibility factor of natural gas, Petroleum Science and Technology, 35:7, 696-702, DOI:
10.1080/10916466.2016.1270305

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10916466.2016.1270305

Published online: 26 Jul 2017.

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Download by: [Australian Catholic University] Date: 26 July 2017, At: 13:26
PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
, VOL. , NO. , –
https://doi.org/./..

Predicting the compressibility factor of natural gas

Navid Azizia and Reza Mosayebi Behbahanib
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran; b Gas Engineering
Department, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahwaz, Iran

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Knowing compressibility factor (z-factor) values of natural gases is the basis Compressibility factor;
of most petroleum engineering calculations. Shortage of available experimen- explicit correlation; natural
tal data for the specified composition, temperature, and pressure conditions gases
encourages researchers to propose efficient equations for calculating z-factor
values.
This investigation presents a useful empirical model for determining natural
gases compressibility factor values. The advantages of this correlation are that
it is explicit in terms of z-factor and the results of calculating compressibility
factor values by this method reveal the supremacy of the new equation over
the other widely used correlations.

1. Introduction
Recently, attention to natural gases instead of other fuels has increased owing to gradual depletion of
oil resources resulting from their high consumption, decrement of natural oil productions in oil reser-
voirs, and increment of oil prices. Moreover, since emission of the greenhouse gas from combustion of
natural gases is lower than those of other fuels, such as oil and coal, natural gases have a high degree of
environmental significance compared with the other energy sources. The precise calculation of the ther-
modynamic properties of natural gases is essential for assessment of practical processes, particularly in
petroleum engineering estimations. The compressibility factor (z-factor) is the most significant property
of natural gases in comparison with other thermodynamic characteristics of natural gases due to its great
applications in chemical and petroleum engineering computations (Kamari et al., 2013).
Accurate evaluation of z-factor of gases is vital in the majority of natural gas engineering calculations,
such as gas flow rate estimations, computations of power required for gas compression, water content
calculations, simulation of gas reservoirs, quantity estimation of the gas accumulated in gas reservoirs,
and other calculations that deal with gas processing (Heidaryan et al., 2010, Chamkalani et al., 2013).
The z-factor values can be determined from three popular sources: experimental measurements,
equations of state, and correlations. When there are few obtainable experimental data for the specified
composition, temperature, and pressure conditions, requirements to this parameter come apparent.
Additionally, the experimental measurements are expensive, time consuming, and tedious. There are
two types of correlations for calculating z-factor: implicit and explicit equations (Kamari et al., 2013,
Azizi et al., 2010, Brill and Beggs, 1974, Dranchuk and Abou-Kassem, 1975, Yarborough and Hall,
1973, Heidaryan et al., 2010b, Sanjari and Lay, 2012, Kamari et al., 2016, Kareem et al., 2015). Applying
implicit equations for calculating z-factor needs a computer or an advanced calculator or it will be time
consuming in the case of no such equipment, whereas explicit equations can be solved easily with a

CONTACT Navid Azizi zei.nav@gmail.com Department of Chemical Engineering, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Shiraz, Iran.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/lpet.
©  Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 697

simple calculator. Besides, some old digital systems, such as PLC systems, used in different industries
particularly in gas industries cannot use implicit correlations for their calculations. Therefore, existence
of an explicit equation with high accuracy is inevitable.
What was presented in the previous investigation (Azizi et al., 2010) is an empirical equation which
is consistently good in the range of 0.2 ࣘ Pr ࣘ 11 and 1.1 ࣘ Tr ࣘ 2. In this study, a new explicit cor-
relation with more accuracy compared to previous correlations is developed. A database for developing
this equation is the popular Standing–Katz (S–K) chart. The novelty of this work in comparison with the
previous studies is as follows.
First, this correlation is utilized over the approximately all ranges of Tr and Pr existing in S–K chart
(0.2 ࣘ Pr ࣘ 15 and 1.1 ࣘ Tr ࣘ 2), while the previous equation proposed by the lead author was valid
for the ranges of 0.2 ࣘ Pr ࣘ 11 and 1.1 ࣘ Tr ࣘ 2. Second, this correlation is developed so that the
compressibility factor becomes unity when the pressure goes to zero, while the absence of this property is
one of the significant drawbacks with the other existing correlations. Third, statistical calculations reveal
more accuracy of the new proposed correlation compared to existing ones. As mentioned earlier, accurate
prediction of z-factor is very important in natural gas calculations such as gas flow rate determination;
therefore, if the accuracy is not very high, calculated gas flow rate will be so different from real gas flow
rate. Combination of these privileges encouraged the authors to do this work.

2. Material and methods

In this section, a new explicit equation is proposed first, and then its accuracy is compared to those of
several widely used correlations.

2.1. New proposed correlation

In this study, the new correlation is developed from several data of S–K chart. For this purpose, the fol-
lowing procedure was carried out: (1) 4,158 experimental z-values were extracted from the S–K chart.
(2) 200 basic equations were chosen based on the trend of z-value verses Tr and Pr in the 3D z-Tr -Pr
diagram. (3) Their coefficients were determined using curve-fitting technique and coefficient of deter-
mination (R2 ) of each equation was calculated. (4) The best equation with the highest R2 was selected
and its exponent coefficients modified so that the new equation owns highest accuracy. (5) The equation
was adjusted in the form of z = 1 + Pr × f (Tr , Pr ), which results in unity value for z-factor if pressure goes
to zero and its coefficients were recalculated. The proposed explicit correlation for predicting z-factor is
as follows:
 
A+B
Z = 1 + Pr (1)
C+D

where

A = 1 + aTr −0.5 + bPr 0.5 + cTr −1.3 Pr 2.4 (2)

B = d ln (Tr ) + e[ln (Tr )]0.001 + f [ln (Tr )]0.2 + g ln (Pr ) + h[ln (Pr )]2 + i[ln (Pr )]3
+ j ln (Tr ) ln (Pr ) + k[ln (Tr )]0.2 ln (Pr ) + l[ln (Tr )]−1.3 [ln (Pr )]2 (3)
C = 1 + mPr 1.957 + nTr 0.6 Pr 0.68 (4)
D = o ln (Tr ) + p[ln (Tr )]0.3 + q ln (Pr ) + r[ln (Pr )]2 + s[ln (Tr )]2.3 ln (Pr ) (5)

The existing constants in Equations (2–5) are tabulated in Table 1. Equation (1) can be employed to
estimate the sweet gases z-factor values over the range of 0.2 ࣘ Pr ࣘ 15 (297 Pr values) and 1.1 ࣘ Tr ࣘ
2 (14 Tr values).
698 N. AZIZI AND R. M. BEHBAHANI

Table . Tuned coefficients used in Eqs. (–).

Coefficient Tuned coefficients Coefficient Tuned coefficients

a .
b − .
c − .E−
d .
e − .
f .
g .
h .
i .
j − .
k .
l .E-
m − .
n − .
o − .
p − .
q .
r .
s − .

2.2. The most widely used correlations for calculating z-factor

For years, empirical correlations have been used instead of the available tables and charts to determine
compressibility factor of gases. As listed below, some of the widely used correlations for computing z-
factor are selected for evaluation and comparison:
(a) Hall and Yarborough’s correlation (Yarborough and Hall, 1973)
(b) Dranchuk and Abou-Kassem’s correlation (Dranchuk and Abou-Kassem, 1975)
(c) Papp’s correlation (Al-Khamis, 1995)
(d) Shell Oil Company correlation (Kumar, 2004)
(e) Brill and Beggs’ correlation (Brill and Beggs, 1974)
(f) Previous study (Azizi et al., 2010)
(g) Lateef et al. correlation (Kareem et al., 2015)
(h) Kamari et al. correlation (Kamari et al., 2016)
It is necessary to mention that there are many other correlations for calculating z-factor. However, the
research which has been carried out by the authors showed that they do not have enough accuracy to
be presented here for comparison with the mentioned equations. Some of such explicit approximations
are as follows:
(a) Sanjari and Nemati’s correlation (Sanjari and Lay, 2012)
(b) Mohamadi-Baghmolaei et al. correlation (Mohamadi-Baghmolaei et al.)

3. Evaluation of the correlations

Several statistical parameters can be considered for the evaluation of z-factor values calculated by the
mentioned correlations in the range of Tr = 1.1–2 and Pr = 0.2–15. In this study, the following statistic
criteria were used: average absolute percent error (Ea ), average percent error (Er ), root-mean-square
error (ERMS ), and coefficient of determination (R2 ).
The above statistical parameters are defined as follows:
n  
1   ZEstimated − ZStanding&Katz 
Ea = (6)
n i=1  ZStanding&Katz 
i
 
1  ZEstimated − ZStanding&Katz
n
Er = (7)
n i=1 ZStanding&Katz i

 n  
 1  ZEstimated − ZStanding&Katz 2
ERMS =  (8)
n i=1 ZStanding&Katz i

 
n

2  n

2
R2 = 1− ZStanding&Katz − ZEstimated i ZStanding&Katz − Z̄ i (9)
i=1 i=1
 PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 699

Table . Statistical accuracy of Standing-Katz based z-factor correlation (, data points).

Correlation Er Ea ERMS R

D-A . . . .

Hall &Yarborogh . . . .
Shell Oil Co. − . . . .
Beggs & Brill − . . . .
Papp . . . .
Lateef et al. . . . .
Kamari et al. . . . .
Previous study . . . .
This study − .×− . . .

where ZStanding&Katz is the compressibility factor value of the S–K chart, ZEstimated is the estimated z-factor
from different correlations,nn is the number of z-factor values, and Z̄ is the mean of estimated z-factor
values defined as Z̄ = n1 i=1 (ZStanding&Katz )i . In this work, 4,158 z-values were utilized for evaluating
the correlations. The obtained results from the statistical error calculations are presented in Table 2.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Accuracy of the new correlation

The results of these computations (Table 2) show that the average percent error, the average absolute per-
cent error, the root-mean-square error, and the coefficient of determination for the new z-factor correla-
tion proposed in this study are about −2.47×10−6 , 0.00292, 0.00494, and 0.9999, respectively. Therefore,
among the z-factor correlations studied in this work, the new correlation shows the smallest error range
and the highest coefficient of determination (R2 ).
In order to exhibit the validity of the correlation in this study more, predicted z-factor values by the
new correlation versus z-factor values obtained from S–K chart are plotted in Figure 1. As can be seen in
Figure 1, all data are relatively coincident with 45° line, which this means the z-factor values estimated
by the new proposed equation are consistent with those are collected from S–K chart. Additionally, to

Figure . Predicted z-factor data by new correlation vs. measured z-factor data.
700 N. AZIZI AND R. M. BEHBAHANI

Figure . (a) Calculated coefficient of determination for the empirical correlations and the new equation. (b) Calculated average absolute
percent error for the empirical correlations and the new equation.

illustrate the fitness quality of the data obtained from the new developed correlation graphically, coeffi-
cients of determination for all studied correlations are shown in Figure 2a. As observed in Figure 2a, this
parameter for the new equation is higher than those of the other equations. This indicator demonstrates
acceptable accuracy of the developed method for calculation of z-factor of sweet natural gasses. More-
over, the bar plots in Figure 2b represent the average absolute percent errors of the z-factor values for
the new proposed model, and the empirical correlations. In Figure 2b, the results show that Equation (1)
has the smallest average absolute percent error among the other existing correlations. In other words, its
accuracy is more than those of the other empirical correlations.

4.2. Case study

In the present case study, the z-factor values for a gas sample of the following properties and conditions
(Table 3) are estimated using the correlations with high precision (D-A, Hall &Yarborogh, Shell Oil Co.
correlations, as well as the new proposed correlation). Thereafter, the calculated data are compared to
experimental z-factor data which are present in Table 4, and shown graphically in Figure 3. Accurate
calculations of z-factor data directly depend on excellent approximations of pseudo-critical properties.
Since the gas sample contains CO2 and H2 S, Tpc and Ppc cannot be calculated using common mixing
rule (Kay’s rule). So these parameters for all correlations are determined using one of the reliable mixing
rules which was proposed by Elsharkawy (2004). The results of these calculations also reveal that z-factor

Table . Physical properties of the natural gas sample

Components Mole % Tc (°R) Pc (psi)

CO . . .

H S . . .
N . . .
C . . .
C . . .
C . . .
iC . . .
nC . . .
 PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 701

Table . Experimental data of z-factor vs. pressure at . °C.

Pressure (psi)        
Zexp. . . . . . . . .

Figure . Measured and predicted compressibility factor for the gas sample.

Table . Tuned coefficients used in the previous proposed equation.

Coefficient Tuned coefficients Coefficient Tuned coefficients

a . k −.
b −. l .
c . m −.
d −. n .
e . o .
f −. p .
g . q .
h . r −.
i −. s .
j . t −.

data determined using the new correlation lay closer to experimental z-factor values compared to other
correlations. In fact, the developed equation in this study can predict z-factor values better than the other
studied correlations.

5. Conclusions
What was studied in this work was a new developed equation for estimating z-factor values of natural
gases. Basis of developing this correlation is z-factor data extracted from the well-known S–K diagram.
The new equation takes advantage of being explicit in terms of Z and so it does not need any trial and
error technique to be solved as is necessary for solving implicit equations. The comparison of accuracy
between the new proposed correlation and other existing and widely used equations has been carried
out using statistical evaluations. The obtained results indicate the supremacy of the novel correlation
compared to the other ones utilized to determine natural gas z-factor values. In other words, the new
developed correlation has smallest average absolute percent error and greatest coefficient of determina-
tion in comparison with those of the other investigated equations. Moreover, the new correlation was
developed in base form of z = 1+Pr ×f (Tr , Pr ) which causes the compressibility factor to be unity when
pressure is equal to zero. The lack of such condition in many proposed equations is a very important
problem which was resolved in the new correlation.
702 N. AZIZI AND R. M. BEHBAHANI

Appendix
The authors in their previous study proposed an explicit equation which is valid in the reduced pressure
and temperature ranges of 0.2ࣘPpr ࣘ 11 and 1.1 ࣘTpr ࣘ 2. The correlation contains 20 constants that are
listed in Table 5 (Azizi et al., 2010).
B+C
Z =A+ (10)
D+E
where

A = aTr 2.16 + bPr 1.028 + cTr −2.1 Pr 1.58 + d[ln (Tr )]−0.5 (11)
B = e + f Tr 2.4 + gPr 1.56 + hTr 3.033 Pr 0.124 (12)
C = i[ln (Tr )]−1.28 + j[ln (Tr )]1.37 + k ln (Pr ) + l[ln (Pr )]2 + m ln (Tr ) ln (Pr ) (13)
D = 1 + nTr 5.55 + oTr 0.33 Pr 0.68 (14)
E = p[ln (Tr )]1.18 + q[ln (Tr )]2.1 + r ln (Pr ) + s[ln (Pr )]2 + t ln (Tr ) ln (Pr ) (15)

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