NATURAL GAS

ENGINEERING-
UNIT -5
-MUKESHKUMAR V P
 REFRIGIRATION
CYCLE-
LEAN OIL ABSORBTION
PROCESS
 LEAN OIL
ABSORBTION
 Refrigerated lean oil is used to absorb the content from the
feed gas, producing a lean gas .
 a propane rich bottom which is sent to the demethanizer.
 The demethanizer operates at a lower pressure, typically at
200 psig, producing an ethane rich gas and a rich oil bottom
containing the components.

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The lean oil absorption process was developed in the early 1910s
which was used exclusively until the 1970s.
Absorption unit uses a lean oil to absorb the components followed
by a demethanizer, and a rich oil still to regenerate the rich oil.
Propane and butane products can be produced.
 To allow the unit to operate at low temperatures, the feed gas must
be injected with ethylene glycol solution to avoid hydrate formation
in the heat exchangers.
The feed gas is cooled by propane refrigeration and separated in a
cold separator, typically at about 0°F.
The separator liquid is sent to the demethanizer while the separator
vapor is routed to the absorber operating at 400 psig.
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 Refrigerated lean oil is used to absorb the content from the feed
gas, producing a lean gas and a propane rich bottom which is sent
to the demethanizer.
 The demethanizer operates at a lower pressure, typically at 200
psig, producing an ethane rich gas and a rich oil bottom containing
the components
The demethanizer overhead is compressed to the sales gas
pipeline or used as fuel gas.
 The bottom product is further processed in a rich oil still
which regenerates a lean oil to be recycled back to the
absorber and an overhead distillate containing the
components.
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The stream can be fractionated in a depropanizer, which
produces the propane and butane product.
Because of the high boiling material of the lean oil, a fired
heater is used in the rich oil still.
 If necessary, the lean oil composition can be controlled using a
lean oil still (not shown) to remove the heavy tails of the lean oil
from the process.
A typical refrigerated lean oil process can achieve 50%–60%
propane recovery, depending on the feed gas composition.
Because of the high equipment counts and the process complexity,
lean oil absorption processes are not cost competitive to expander
plants and are seldom used today .
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THE END……….