Papers
Troubleshooting Mono Ethylene Glycol Carryover in a Canadian Gas Plant
Laurance Reid Gas Condition Conference
February 26th – March 1st, 2019 – Norman, Oklahoma USA
The facility in this paper is a gas plant which started operation in 2013 and in the Fort St. John area of British Columbia, Canada. It has a total name plate capacity of 200 MMSCFD sweet natural gas. Liquid carryover of water/MEG/hydrocarbons from the low temperature separator prevented the plant from reaching pipeline water content, hydrocarbon dew point (HCDP) specifications. Initial attempts by the plant’s operations team focused on reduction of contaminant ingress to the refrigeration trains. Despite the improved results, the liquid carryover continued to occur, resulting in off-spec sales gas. Further troubleshooting efforts took a holistic approach and applied multi discipline involvement, equipment sizing, process simulation, along with stream sampling and analysis allowing the team to uncover a list of equipment design flaws. This paper stresses the importance of proper design data hand over from Projects to Operations, understanding the operating envelope of plant equipment, accessibility to plant historian for remote troubleshooting/monitoring, proper MOC (Management of Change) implementation, documentation, and the need for operations/engineering teams training to identify early signs of deviation from optimal process parameters.
Review of Common Design Flaws in Ethylene Glycol Refrigeration Plants and Their Operational Impact
Laurance Reid Gas Condition Conference
February 21th – March1st, 2017 – Norman, Oklahoma USA
The purpose of this paper is to identify the common fundamental design flaws in ethylene glycol (EG) refrigeration plants, the operational challenges associated with them and what can be done to remediate them. The paper is an extension and revision of the “Optimizing Glycol Injection Refrigeration Plants” paper presented at LRGCC in 1991. The use of EG for hydrate inhibition in refrigeration plants to recover NGLs is a common practice. In Canada, the construction of EG refrigeration plants has risen dramatically as a result of the recent economic demand for liquid hydrocarbons. However, as a result of some common misconceptions, many of the EG refrigeration plants built in the past 26 years have fundamental design flaws causing unnecessary initial and continual operation expenditures. This paper, with the help of a comprehensive case study evaluation, aims to highlight theses flaws, their subsequent operational challenges and common recommendations to remediate them.
Optimizing Ethylene Glycol Refrigeration Process to Maximize NGL Recovery
Laurance Reid Gas Condition Conference
February 22th – 25 th, 2015 – Norman, Oklahoma USA
The use of ethylene glycol for hydrate inhibition in natural gas refrigeration plants to recover LPGs is common practice. However, it is important that the ethylene glycol regeneration loop is properly designed to accomadate the operating conditions of the refrigeration process. If this is not the case, there may be issues in the process that can have a significant effect on the plant’s performance. This paper provides a case study on a plant outlining simple changes that can be made in an ethylene glycol regeneration loop to increase liquid production and decrease operating costs.