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.