Presented at GasTech Centre of Technical Excellence 23 March 2011
Gauthier Perdu & François Lallemand, Prosernat
Claire Weiss, Total SA
Julia Magne Drisch, IFP Energies nouvelles
Natural gases contain variable amounts of H2S and/or CO2 that need to be removed before natural gas can be further processed and transported. Amine based processes is the most common technology being used for such purpose. The costs, both CAPEX and OPEX, related to these processes increase significantly with the content of the acid gases to be removed, mainly because of increased solvent circulation.
Solutions have been developed in order to mitigate these cost increases. Within the family of amine based processes, these solutions include: solvent selection, improved/tailor made process configuration and use of high solvent loading. Many of these solutions have been experienced over the years, with the AdvAmine™, amine based process technologies. This paper illustrates some of these solutions through examples.
Nevertheless for the treatment of natural gases containing very high amounts of acid gases, several tens % mol, alternative technologies have been developed. The Sprex™ process, is an illustration of such alternative technology. It has been developed jointly by Total, IFP Energies Nouvelles and Prosernat, initially for the pre-treatment of natural gases containing high H2S amounts and more recently also for gases containing high amounts of CO2, in a modified process configuration. Economic studies presented in this paper show that a combined use of Sprex with amine based processes can result in significant cost savings, when compared with amine based treatment only.
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