How Turboexpanders with Variable Inlet Guide Vanes Increase LNG Production Flexibility

Radial inflow turbines (RIT), or turboexpanders, have become not only essential to the oil and
gas industry, but also to specific applications in the realm of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Variable inlet guide vanes (vIGV) are RIT’s unique feature, rendering the turboexpander as a
variable geometry turbomachine. In turn, this makes a turboexpander an effective solution for
variable load and flexible LNG production. After describing the evolution of turboexpander
technology, this article presents a modern case study from the US, a mini-LNG plant in Port
Allen, Louisiana. It describes the technical specifications and processes, as well as the
challenges and solutions, at the Port Allen plant.

Achieving cryogenic temperatures

Until the late 1950s, natural gas processing plants generally used oil absorption and/or propane
refrigeration to separate and recycle natural gas. Typically, 75% of butane and 85-90% of
pentane and heavier components were recovered in the oil absorption method. Depending on
the natural gas composition and pressure, propane recoveries ranged from 30% to 50% in the
propane refrigeration process.

Though RITs had originally been installed in air separation plants in the late 1930s, the first
natural gas cryogenic turboexpander in the US was not installed in a natural gas processing
plant until 1959-1960. The combination of oil absorption and propane refrigeration, however,
was neither efficient nor effective in recovering lighter hydrocarbons, such as propane and
ethane. The recovery of these natural gas components required deep refrigeration, and this
could not be achieved by applying conventional methods from the oil and gas industry at that
time.

Ultimately, having a technology to achieve cryogenic temperatures enabled the oil and gas
industry to efficiently liquefy natural gas (LNG). When cooled to approximately -162oC (-260°F),
natural gas condenses into a liquid roughly 1/600th the volume of its gaseous state, which
allows for effective storage and transportation. Building on its success in cryogenic gas
processing, the turboexpander has extended its unique benefits to LNG production. Nowadays,
RITs are employed in LNG pre-treatment, boil-off gas recovery, refrigeration and liquefaction.

RIT features and operation

The RIT is a turbomachine with numerous features that make it ideal for the oil and gas
industry. Incoming flow enters an expander wheel in a radial direction after passing through
variable inlet guide vanes. The turboexpander is considered a 50% reaction turbine, whereby,
vIGVs use approximately half of the enthalpy across the expander stage to accelerate incoming
flow and direct it at an optimum angle into a radial wheel. The remaining expansion occurs in
the turboexpander wheel, where process fluid makes a turn to exit the wheel in the axial
direction.
Variable inlet guide vanes create optimal gas velocities by efficiently converting potential
energy to kinetic energy. The vIGVs operate like a control valve, adjusting flow passage
according to process demands. In this way, the vIGVs are used to control a variety of process
parameters, including flow, pressure, and temperature.

The turboexpander wheel is attached to a rigid shaft supported by radial and axial bearings, and
power extracted by the wheel is used to drive a variety of equipment. Most commonly,
expander power is recovered by a compressor impeller installed on the other end of the shaft.
This arrangement has many simplifying mechanical and rotor dynamic features, enabling the
expander-compressor (EC) to operate with variable speed, depending on process conditions.

The short rigid shaft with overhung wheels allows for designs with no bending mode critical
speeds within the range of operation (i.e. zero to shutdown speed). And by selecting a specific
number of guide vanes, the expander wheel is tuned with minimal avoid speeds due to wheel
resonance. These features enable the turboexpander to operate at the required process
parameters and speeds.

Furthermore, because the expander-compressor has no considerable axial load during normal
operation of the gas plant, it is an ideal turbomachine for the application of active magnetic
bearings (AMB). Both oil lubricated and active magnetic bearings are used in LNG production,
each offering specific advantages in their given applications.

Turboexpanders in LNG
Prior to entering a liquification plant, natural gas must be treated, because heavy hydrocarbons
and other substances freeze at LNG storage temperatures and must be removed. A
turboexpander can directly cool a gas stream through near isentropic expansion, providing the
required refrigeration to liquify heavier hydrocarbons. During this process, liquid mass fractions
at the discharge of the expander are typical, and they can be as high as 55% in some
applications. Removed heavy hydrocarbons may be recovered as natural gas liquids, or NGLs
(i.e., butane, propane, and ethane), which have value as petrochemical feedstocks.

With impurities removed, natural gas then undergoes liquefaction to become LNG. Three cycles
are considered for this process: the cascade refrigeration cycle, the mixed refrigerant (MR)
cycle, and the turboexpander cycle. For large baseload plants, cascade and MR cycles are
typically used. Even so, increased market pressure for thermally efficient LNG plants has led to
potential applications of turboexpanders in MR cycles.

Turboexpander cycles utilize gas compression and expansion (reverse Brayton) in a dedicated
refrigeration loop to generate the necessary cooling to liquify natural gas. High-pressure gas is
expanded in one or many stages before it enters an exchanger to extract heat from the LNG
product stream. An advantage is that the refrigerants can be inert, like nitrogen, removing the
need for flammable refrigerant storage. And magnetic bearings are typically used in nitrogen
cycles in order to avoid oil migration to the heat exchanger, which results in fouling.

Moreover, turboexpander cycles utilizing methane eliminate the need for external refrigerants
altogether. In fact, the methane used for refrigeration is directly sourced from the LNG feed
gas. These cycles can be arranged in an open loop configuration, enabling energy recovery from
high-pressure feed gas, and consequently minimizing concerns of oil migration to the heat
exchanger.

Port Allen mini LNG plant

A prime example of a turboexpander is the NuBlu Energy mini-LNG plant in Port Allen,
Louisiana, commissioned in December 2017 and in continuous operation since. NuBlu Energy’s
technology utilizes pressure letdown energy through an expander-compressor. This technology
consumes minimum input energy per unit volume of LNG production under favorable natural
gas pipeline pressure conditions.

The expander-compressor provides the primary refrigeration in this process. High-Pressure gas
sourced from the transmission line undergoes isentropic expansion through the turboexpander,
providing approximately 75% of the overall plant refrigeration. The cold discharge gas is routed
to a high-efficiency heat exchanger, where it extracts heat from the LNG product line, bringing
the natural gas to near liquid temperatures. After the heat exchanger, the gas is then
recompressed and routed to a low-pressure distribution line. The compressor of the EC is
directly coupled to, and powered by, the turboexpander, offering free work and boosting
overall plant efficiency.

The expander-compressor utilized at this site is in fact small compared to gas processing
standards. The 92-mm (3.6-inch) expander-impeller produces 520 HP at 69,000 RPM and it is
classified as a Frame 1 according to the OEMs convention. All power produced at the expander
wheel is converted to refrigeration (390 kw, 1.3 million BTU/hr) while also fully recovered by
the compressor wheel, thereby, reducing the downstream post compressor duty. The high-
speed and power combination of the unit are near frame-size-experience limits, maximizing the
refrigeration per unit volume of the machinery.

The compact footprint enabled the expander-compressor, along with its auxiliary lube oil
system, to be packaged on a single rigid base frame with the rest of the liquefaction module.
The hermetically sealed expander compressor and auxiliary lube oil system has no external
shaft seals, resulting in zero leakage to the atmosphere. The complete liquefaction module
includes the braised aluminum heat exchanger (BAHX), liquid J-T valve, expander J-T valve,
compressor anti-surge loop, and interconnecting piping.

Port Allen operation

The process designers for the Port Allen plant required more than 15 off-design cases for
expander-compressor operation. A 3:1 turndown ratio was needed to meet varying demand,
with optimal performance being required to minimize power consumption and hence maximize
gross profit. Variable IGVs and a booster compressor recycle made the required turndown
readily possible, taking full advantage of the available pressures at various flows. To meet the
turndown ratio, the expander-compressor rotational speed varies between 35,000-65,000 rpm,
which corresponds to 10,000-30,000 gpd LNG production.

The vIGVs deployed at Port Allen control the expander-compressor flow, and the flow ratio
between the refrigeration circuit and the LNG product stream are varied for different levels of
production. And the turboexpander discharge pressure is controlled by a downstream
compressor. This downstream compressor runs continuously during production, and it
supplements the boost required to return the gas to the low-pressure distribution line.
Seasonal influences may vary the distribution line pressure, furthering the need for flexible
operation of the turboexpander.

As is usual, the commissioning of the Port Allen plant was not without some challenges. For
example, unanticipated heavy hydrocarbons were present in the refrigeration stream, requiring
a change of upstream sieve material in order to capture the heavy hydrocarbons. This allowed
the refrigeration stream to reduce to design temperatures.

And once the expander compressor was able to approach design speeds, a predominant 1 x
vibration was observed, which was likely due to what is known as the Morton effect. The
Morton effect is a rare phenomenon that can happen when the motion of the shaft on its orbit
has the same frequency as the rotation frequency. The manufacturer rebalanced the rotor to a
higher tolerance and modified the bearing. By reducing the pad L/D, increasing specific load
and eccentricity, the machine was reinstalled and ran up to design speeds without any further
issues.

Conclusion
The radial inflow turbine, or turboexpander, has been used in hydrocarbon applications for
more than 50 years now. In gas processing plants, turboexpanders normally serve as the main
piece of rotating equipment for any cryogenic section. Variable inlet guide vanes – the unique
feature of a turboexpander – are essential to ensuring variable load and flexible production.
The case study presented of the Port Allen mini-LNG plant is nowadays a typical application for
an expander-compressor. It demonstrates how turboexpanders can provide both power
efficiency and economic advantages in LNG production.