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Chemical & Optimisation of Natural Gas Processing Facility
Processing
Vishal Pawar, Chief Engineer Process, Aker Powergas Pvt. Ltd. and Vishal Shah,
Senior Process Engineer, Aker Powergas Pvt. Ltd. Conceptualisation and firming up of
EPC
process scheme are of paramount importance in the natural gas processing facility. Process
Oil & Gas engineers should carefully analyse all the parameters i.e. production profile, composition of
well fluid, desired end product quality and then conceptualise the overall scheme by
Refining carrying out process simulation. The article tends to demonstrate the importance of these
things such as conceptualisation, selection of optimum scheme and process simulation
Automation using the case study.
Pharma Biotech
Currently majority of the world’s primary energy is supplied by burning fossil fuels i.e. oil,
Shipping coal and the natural gas collectively. Typically, before burning these fossil fuels are
processed either for cleaning it, so that it can be transported by pipeline or for extracting /
Power recovering valuable products. Particularly talking about natural gas, although it’s processing
is less complicated than refining of the crude oil, natural gas processing is extremely energy
Water intensive and requires special attention in making choices which can make overall
processing to be energy efficient. Natural gas processing, by and large, being an open art
Infrastructure &
technology, there are various concepts and options available for achieving same results.
Design
However selecting the one with the right level of capital investment and operating cost is
extremely important.
CASE STUDY
In the case study considered for this article, there is an existing processing facility handling
the gas right from the choke valve till the exports gas as indicated in the figure 1. The system
consists of TEG absorption based gas dehydration and JouleThomson (JT) expansion
valve based dew pointing system in order to meet the Exports gas specification. Typical
specifications as follows:
• Gas train capacity : 200mmscfd
• Flowing wellhead pressure (upstream of choke valve) : 82barg
• Choke valve downstream pressure : 45barg
• Export gas specification:
• Pressure : 87barg
• Water content : 7lb/mmscf
• HC dew point temperature : 4°C at 38barg
The intent of the study is to understand the existing system, carry out process simulation to
achieve energy optimisation of the facility and make the operation energy efficient which will
in turn reduce the operating cost.
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EXISTING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Well fluid from choke valve is fed to high pressure separator where primary separation takes
place between gas and liquid (Refer figure 1). The Wet gas from this separator is sent to the
Inlet Gas Scrubber to remove entrained free liquid. This wet gas is then dehydrated in the
TEG contactor to the dehydration required quality of 7lb/mmscf and sent further to
hydrocarbon dew pointing unit. The dehydrated gas from TEG Contactor is chilled in the
GasGas Exchanger (5 degree Celsius temperature approach is maintained for optimum
GasGas exchanger design) by gas from the Second Low Temperature Separator before
entering the First Low Temperature Separator. This gas is then sent to JT valve designed
with required pressure drop. The adiabatic gas expansion results in temperature drop at
downstream of the JT valve. Any liquid condensation resulting from the expansion is
collected in the Second Low Temperature Separator. The gas stream from the Second Low
Temperature Separator after heating is compressed to 87barg i.e. pipeline delivery
pressure.
SIMULATION MODEL SET UP AND VALIDATION
As a first step, the study is carried out by modeling entire facility in the process simulator.
HYSYS, which is renowned software for the upstream industry simulations, is used for
process modeling. Thermodynamic property package of PengRobinson is used. As a part of
validation, the results from the simulation model are corroborated with the actual operating
data from the plant. It is observed that results are closely matching with the plant data after
fine tuning of the simulation.
The modeling of the processing facility and review of generated heat and mass balance
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provides complete picture about the plant, makes it possible to understand critical areas
which should be concentrated for energy optimisation. Simulation model also provides the
flexibility to alter some of the process parametres, which can have impact on the energy
requirements. These parametres can be adjusted based on the technical judgment to
understand the performance of the plant before actually executing the same in the field. In
this case study, similar technical analysis is carried out and various opportunities are
observed for the energy optimisations, some of them are discussed in the following sections.
ENERGY SAVING OPPORTUNITY 1 – USE OF TURBO EXPANDER One of the obvious
options for optimisation, after observing this type of facility is that whether it is possible to use
the turboexpander in place of JT valve, which can improve the power recovery making
operation energy efficient.
Refer figure 2. In this case, chilled gas from TurboExpander KnockOut Drum is directed to
the TurboExpander where the gas expands as it flows across the turbine blades and cools
near the isentropic gas expansion process. Since the expansion is near isentropic,
expander outlet temperature is significantly lower than that is achieved by JT valve. The
JouleThomson process is a constant enthalpy expansion, whilst the turbo expander
process is a near constant entropy expansion.
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The effect of constant enthalpy and constant entropy expansion on temperature drop is
further elaborated in figure 3 of Mollier chart of Methane. The Mollier chart has pressure on
yaxis and enthalpy on xaxis. It also contains constant entropy curve and constant
temperature curves. The blue lines are constant entropy curves and red lines are constant
temperature curves (refer zoom out section of figure 3).
Consider an example in which Methane gas is at pressure of 60barg and temperature of 30
degree Celsius (Point P1 in Zoom out section). The gas is then expanded to 40barg. When
the gas expansion is isenthalpic (through JT valve), then it follows the constant enthalpy
path of straight vertical line (as enthalpy is on Xaxis) from point P1 to P3 in Zoom out
section. The corresponding temperature for isenthalpic process at 40barg will be 22 degree
Celsius (Point P3).
Now if methane gas at same start conditions expands in isentropic way (almost like in Turbo
expander), then it follows the constant entropy curve (blue line) from point P1 to P2 in Zoom
out section. For the same gas expansion to 40barg, the corresponding temperature for
isentropic expansion will be 0 degree Celsius (Point P2). Thus as can be observed from
Mollier chart that when gas expands in isentropic fashion, the temperature drop is higher
compare to isenthalpic expansion.
In brief, the same gas specification can be achieved with less pressure drop in a Turbo
Expander compared to a JT valve and same is evident from the table 1 that more
temperature drop can be created per bar of pressure drop created.
Thus as can be observed from the table1, drop in temperature per bar of pressure drop is
much more for turboexpander than that of JT valve, meaning that, in our application, same
specification of the gas can be achieved by dropping lesser pressure if Turboexpander is
used against JT valve.
In addition to this, the Turbo Expander can recover useful work from the gas expansion
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process if a recompressor is required. Turbo expander energy can be utilised in running the
recompressor so that more power recovery can be done. This gas from recompressor is
further compressed to pipeline pressure of 87barg by export compressor. However, as the
inlet pressure of the export compressor is much higher, it results in reduction of overall
pressure boosting requirements.
The process facility is modeled in the process simulator replacing the JT valve with the
Turboexpander. Table 2 provides the results in terms of various process parametres and
export gas compressor power.
It can be observed that using turbo expander in place of JT valve for the achieving desired
dew pointing of the gas can provide power saving of around ~1500 kW, say around 1.2
million USD per annum, which is substantial. It is worth noting that, although turbo expander
requires additional capital expenditure, looking at the significant amount of saving, pay back
period can be approximately two years.
In order to utilise the available wellhead flowing pressure, possibility of increasing the choke
valve downstream pressure is evaluated. After carrying out simulation runs for various
cases, it is confirmed that as facility pressure is increased, the difference between the actual
temperature and hydrate formation temperature decreases raising the possibility of the
hydrate formation. Table 3 provides the results with increased facility pressure.
As can be observed from above table, increase in choke valve downstream pressure
reduces the margin between the actual temperature and hydrate formation temperature. As
per standard engineering practice, the minimum temperature difference between the actual
and Hydrate formation temperature is typically maintained as 5 degree Celsius. Considering
this requirement, it is not feasible to increase the facility pressure at the given water content
of 7 lb/mmscf. Here one should note that Hydrate formation is not only dependent on
pressure but it is also a function of water content in the gas. At given pressure, as the water
content decreases, the hydrate formation temperature also decreases.
Therefore, existing TEG based dehydration section is evaluated for improving the
dehydrated gas quality. After carrying out detail study of dehydration unit, it is observed that
water content can be reduced to 5 lb/mmscf by adding the gas stripping section in TEG
regenerator. With addition of stripping section, the lean TEG concentration can be increased
which in turn provides the dehydration quality of 5 lb/mmscf.
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With this higher dehydration quality (5 lb/mmscf ), simulations runs are carried out with
increased choke valve downstream pressure. For each run, the difference between the
actual temperature and hydrate formation temperature is evaluated and it is tabulated in
Table 4.
As can be observed from tables 3 and 4, with minimum temperature margin of 5 degree
Celsius between actual and hydrate formation temperature, the choke valve downstream
pressure can be increased to 50.7barg for 5 lb/mmscf water content compared to 45barg for
7 lb/mmscf water content. As shown in Case3, any further increase in the facility pressure
further reduces the margin between lowest temperature and hydrate formation temperature.
This increased facility pressure shall reduce the load on Exports Gas compressor. Table 5
provides the results in terms of operating pressure and Exports gas compressor power for
increased choke valve downstream pressure.
It can be observed that with higher choke valve downstream pressure can provide power
saving of around ~1100 kW which is substantial.
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OVERALL SUMMARY
Table 6 provides the export Gas compressor power for energy saving options against base
case.
After evaluating the entire Natural gas processing facility, it is observed that replacing the JT
valve with Turboexpander for desired gas dew pointing can provide potential power saving
of ~ 1500 kW. It is also observed that with higher gas dehydration quality of 5 lb/mmscf, the
hydrate formation temperature can be reduced which in turn allows higher facility pressure
i.e. 50.7barg from 45barg. With this higher pressure, there can be potential power saving of
1100 kW. Considering both the energy saving possibilities, there can be total power saving
of ~ 2600 kW (~30 per cent of export gas compressor power), in other words saving of
around USD 2 million per annum.
CONCLUSION
In order to optimise the overall process in terms of capital investments and operating cost,
one should really understand the impact and correlation of each parametre on overall
process. For case study considered in this article, it is observed that selection of correct
options / parametres for achieving the desired results is extremely important. Selection of
Turbo expander over JT valve for this particular case saves 1500 kW power. At the same
time, tightening of the dehydrated gas quality allows the processing at higher pressure
further reducing the power requirement by 1100 kW. Application of both these options can
lead to power saving of around 2600 kW which is saving of around 2million USD per annum.
Thus as a process engineer, at the stage of conceptualisation, one has to completely
understand the system and must attempt to optimise the overall scheme by studying the
system in totality.
Covered in OSW June July 12 »
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