Natural Gas Engineering

(CHE-484)
Lecture 2-3:

Introduction

1
What is Natural Gas?
• Petroleum: A naturally occurring, complex
mixture of hydrocarbons (minor amount of
inorganic compounds)
• Natural gas is a subcategory of petroleum
‒ Gaseous fossil fuel
‒ Oil fields and natural gas field
• Grouped with other fossil fuels; however, unique
characteristic
Conversion of parent organic material into petroleum
• Not understood
• Petroleum originates from plants and animal
remains that accumulate on the sea/lake floor along
with the sediments that form sedimentary rocks
Factors that may contribute:
a. shearing pressure during compaction, heat, and
natural distillation at depth
b. presence of catalysts and time
c. bacterial action
d. possible addition of hydrogen from deep-seated
sources
Formation of natural gas
• Organic matter is the remains of ancient flora and
fauna that was deposited over the past 550 million
years
• Organic debris mixed with mud, silt, and sand on the
sea floor; buried over time.
• Anaerobic environment
• Exposed to increasing amounts of pressure and heat,
the organic matter decomposed to hydrocarbons
• “Product of decomposed organic matter”
A reservoir containing oil and associated gas.
Typical Composition of a Natural Gas
• Methane, a major
component of the gas
mixture
• Inorganic compounds
‒ not combustible
‒ cause corrosion
• Heating value of
natural gas usually
varies from 700 to
1,600 Btu/scf.
Classification of natural gas accumulations in
geological traps
• Reservoir
‒ Porous underground formation
‒ Individual bank of hydrocarbons confined by
impermeable rock or water barriers
• Pool
‒ A pool contains one or more reservoirs in isolated
structures
• Field
‒ consists of one or more reservoirs all related to
the similar structural feature
‒ A single field can contain multiple reservoirs
Natural Gas Industry
• Natural gas was once a by-product of crude oil
production
• More efficient use of natural gas is of paramount
importance
• Any gas sold to an industrial or domestic
consumer must meet designated specification
• Composition of natural gas can vary significantly
as the product flowing out of the well can change
with variability of the production conditions
In the early years of the natural gas industry:
‒ the gas accompanied crude oil
‒ find a market or be flared
‒ flared in huge quantities
‒ gas production often short-lived

• The rapidly growing energy demands of Western

Europe, Japan, and the United States could not be
satisfied without importing gas from far fields.
Liquefied natural gas:
‒ liquefied by a refrigeration cycle
‒ reduce its volume to the point where it becomes
economically attractive to transport
‒ reduced to about one six-hundredth of its original
volume
‒ Non-methane components are largely eliminated
‒ transported efficiently and rapidly by insulated
tankers
‒ At the receiving terminals, regasification
• Current production from conventional sources is
not sufficient to satisfy all demands for natural gas.
Classification of Wells
• Gas wells
‒ gas-oil-ratio (GOR) being greater than 100,000
scf/stb

• Condensate wells
‒ gas-oil-ratio (GOR) being less than 100,000
scf/stb, but greater than 5,000 scf/stb

• Oil wells
‒ gas-oil-ratio (GOR) being less than 5,000 scf/stb
Types of Natural Gas
• Non-associated gas
‒ reservoirs with minimal oil
• Associated gas
‒ the gas dissolved in oil under natural conditions
in the oil reservoir
‒ associated gas (sometimes called gas-cap gas) is
free gas in contact with the crude oil
• Gas condensate
‒ Mixture of low-boiling hydrocarbon liquids
obtained by condensation
‒ Predominately C5H12, varying amounts of
higher hydrocarbon up to C8H18, little C1-C4
 • Fuels derived from natural gas:
‒ one quarter of the total world energy supply

Natural gas is used as a source of energy in all sectors of the U.S.

economy (Louisiana Department of Natural Resources 2004).
Example Problem
Natural gas from the Schleicher County has a heating
value of 1,598 Btu/scf. If this gas is combusted to
generate power of 1,000 kW, what is the required gas
flow rate in Mscf/day? Assume that the overall
efficiency is 50 percent.