How to Maximize Performance in the Amine Unit

Andrea Marek, Nalco Water; Jesse Santos, BASF; Rodolfo Gonzalez, Nalco Water

With the on-set of the Shale Revolution in the early 2000’s, the heart of the Midstream operations are
the liquids recovery facilities. NGL Extraction plants use amine units to pre-treat the gas to achieve high
ethane, propane and “heavies” recoveries. When ethane prices drive ethane recovery mode, the amine
unit must be relied on to remove nearly all the CO2. If left in the gas, CO2 will freeze in the cryogenic unit
and limit the operator’s extraction unit efficiency, performance and overall profitability.

Amine systems are very sensitive to contaminants in the inlet gas. Normally separation and filtering
operations prior to the amine unit remove contaminants. Even with these operations, problems and
system upsets still occur. Finding ways (solutions) to minimize, mitigate or prevent those upsets and
maintain performance is critical.

Being the end point of the drilling basin gathering system, today’s Midstream gas plants are designed to
separate and collect pipeline treatments that are added to protect the gathering system - corrosion
inhibitors, scavengers and pigging slugs. However, rich gas condensate slugs - along with these
protective treatments - periodically make it past the gas plant’s inlet separators and become
contaminants in the closed-loop amine unit. Finding ways (solutions) to minimize, mitigate or prevent
those upsets and maintain performance is critical.

Know what’s coming in from the field.

Corrosion by-products, condensate and oxygen from field gathering and treatment carry-over into the
processing plants. This creates challenges for not only the amine unit, but inlet separation, compression,
filters, glycol units and molecular sieve beds. It is remarkable how far some of the inlet liquids and solids
travel into a processing unit and the resulting issues they can cause. Corrosion, fouling, maintenance
and loss of revenue from downtime create an additional level of burden on maintaining a plant’s profit
goals.

Let’s begin with the number one thing you can do. Keep contaminants out of the gas plant.

This makes the job of the inlet separator extremely important as its purpose is to remove contaminants
prior to processing. Maintaining the inlet separation unit and ensuring the mechanical dumps are
removing inlet solids and liquids, is considered “best practice” to prevent issues in the plant. Sometimes
this is just not enough to prevent solids carry-over causing fouling and foaming in the amine unit and
other downstream units. The culprit - black powder, also known as iron sulfide and/or iron oxide are
solids formed from corrosion due to the presence of hydrogen sulfide or sulfide-reducing bacteria.

Nalco Water’s approach is to improve the separation operation through the use a multifunctional
program to improve inlet separation; thereby removing oil wet solids, preventing potential for under-
deposit corrosion, and mitigate microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC).
CASE HISTORY 1

Production maintained and inlet separation performance improved with Clean n Cor™

The gas processor had challenges with iron sulfide plugging coalescers and filters. Weekly filter
changeouts were commonplace and foaming was beginning to occur in the amine unit. The Nalco
Water Clean n Cor™ program was introduced at the inlet separator to mitigate black powder
carryover and improve separation performance. As a result, the plant saw a 112% return on
investment through a reduction:

1. Filter change-outs
2. Antifoam usage in the amine unit, and
3. Less unplanned downtime for maintenance

When oxygen is present, it’s the plants number one problem.

Oxygen is always present. We can never eliminate it entirely. Most gathering contracts limit oxygen to
less than 10 ppm oxygen, though some have been as high as 2000 ppm oxygen. The goal is to always
work towards zero. When you look at the magnitude of oxygen, even trace levels of oxygen can be
devastating to the amine unit and other processes in the plant. Oxygen can cause significant capacity
and equipment reliability problems if its presence is ignored.

Oxygen degrades the amine solvent and forms Heat Stable Amine Salts. These salts “tie-up” or “bind”
the amine, so it is useless to absorb new acid gases which results in capacity loss of the solvent. What is
worse than the capacity loss, is that these degradation products increase the amine solution corrosivity.
Amine units are designed with an 1/8” generalized corrosion allowance (125 mils for 25 years or 5
mils/year allowance). The amine heat stable salts will cause localized pipe wall thinning at much greater
than 5 mils/year and create catastrophic pipe or flange failure in the hot lean areas of the amine unit.
Not to mention, the increased foaming tendency of the circulating amine solution due to particulates.
As a result, the plant realizes unpredicted mechanical reliability costs, higher operating costs with amine
losses, higher frequency of mechanical filter changeouts, and lost NGL recovery revenue from downtime
or residue gas flaring.

However, all is not lost. There are predictive approaches which can be implemented to better manage
performance and efficiency. At a minimum, corrosion indicators should be monitored: oxygen levels,
corrosion, Heat Stable Salt anions and free metals. Our belief at Nalco Water is that insight drives
performance. We view this holistically, and through a comprehensive approach we aim at extending the
life of the amine solvent and improving overall NGL plant performance. This approach incorporates a
proprietary real-time process corrosion analyzer, connected chemistry and partnered expertise.
CASE HISTORY 2

Insights from real time monitoring improves amine plant performance.

The amine side of a reboiler had numerous failures due to corrosion resulting in downtime and a 25%
reduction in processing capacity. Nalco Water’s Amine Corrosion Analyzer was put into service and
uncovered oxygen was the root cause of the failures. A tailored response of INTERCEPT™, a corrosion
inhibitor with real-time information, lowered corrosion and subsequent build-up of Heat Stable Salts.
Insight from this comprehensive solution delivered operational cost savings from improved amine
capacity and reduced downtime associated with reboiler maintenance and repair.

Figure 1. Amine Corrosion Analzyer and INTERCEPT improves peformance

Incorporate a total operational point of view.

The most basic questions that must be answered when selecting any one of the widely used amines in
gas processing (DEA, ADEG, MDEA, formulated MDEA blends) is will it remove the acid gases that I need
it to? Is it flexible to be used the way I want it to? Does it degrade with the acid gas I am trying to
remove? Is it efficient for the size of the processing equipment? The NALCO Water - BASF team can help
answer design & amine selection questions for both operators and engineering design firms.

So, you have selected your amine, but what should be considered when looking at on-going operational
costs and system optimization? The answer is quite a bit. There are always opportunities to optimize
operation of the amine unit. Approaching optimization from a holistic, comprehensive view starting with
the end in mind is most efficacious. Diagnostic tools help undercover these opportunities.

Considering the amine unit is a finely tuned system, any process control changes such as heat balance,
reboiler duty, recirculation rates etc. will have tremendous influence on the CO2 removal and
subsequent NGL extraction plant profitability. Proprietary simulations should be run periodically to
determine if any modifications can improve efficiency and optimize plant operations. Using tower
gamma scanning to help troubleshoot and optimize tower performance is useful for highlighting
mechanical abnormalities and process bottlenecks. Potential benefits realized are increased production,
reduced downtime and streamlined turnarounds, all leading to optimized performance.

In some US Shale Basins, the H2S levels that were negligible in early drilling programs are now more than
an annoyance as other shale layers are being drilled out. These “low ppm levels” of H2S and can be
especially challenging for operators. Utilizing a non-regenerable system such as Nalco’s UltraFab™
system in front of the amine unit, or in parallel treating a portion of the gas can effectively eliminate H2S
in the amine acid gas thermo-oxidizer, as well as, providing back-up removal during a shut down or prior
to commissioning a new unit.

CASE HISTORY 3

Operational cost savings result from total operational viewpoint.

With high solvent circulation rates, a gas processor was required to operate at maximum unit
pumping capacity. Plant utilization decreased. Under conditions of low feed gas throughput and high
recirculation rates, operating expenses were unnecessarily high, and hydrocarbon co-absorption
occurred and led to foaming, thus increasing operating expenses. Nalco Water and BASF used
advanced process simulators to determine optimal changes for plant operations. The change resulted
in a lower flow in the regenerator, decreasing the overall reboiler duty required to regenerate the
amine.

As a result of the recommended operational changes, amine recirculation rate was reduced by 33%
energy leading to lowering the reboiler energy input from 8.2 MMBtu/hr to 6.2 MMBtu/hr – a 24%
reduction in fuel gas to the hot oil system.

Conclusion

Containments and corrosion will always challenge processing operations. Nalco Water’s goal is to
improve plant performance. We approach optimization from a holistic, comprehensive view using real-
time diagnostic tools and expertise.

Increased unit reliability means plant operations teams are ahead of profit reducing challenges, thus
supporting efficient use of limited resources.