Chapter 6

Natural Gas Liquid Recovery or gas processing

It means removing ethane and heavier components from gas stream then they are
fractionated and sold as pure components or combined and sold as LPG (ethane,
propane, butane) or NGL (pentane and heavier components).
It's more economical to separate the natural gas liquid by fractionation and sell it as
ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline
Objectives of Gas Processing:-
1- Usually, gas processing is installed because it's more economical to extract NGL
and sell it although this decreases the heating value of the gas but the gain from
selling NGL is higher than the loss from selling the gas with a decrease in its
heating value and we have to make sure that the income can provide the capital
cost and fixed cost of gas processing to make it an attractive process.
2- It can be used to reduce the heating value (Btu content) of the gas by extracting
heavy hydrocarbons because if the gas is too rich in heavy hydrocarbons, it won't
work properly with burners that are designed for low heating values.
Processes of separating LPG and NGL for gas:-
A) Lean oil absorption
Main Idea: heavy hydrocarbons are absorbed by lean oil which is stripped to remove
absorbed hydrocarbons and recycled.
Mechanism: Kerosene is used as lean oil. The gas stream is cooled be heat
exchanging with the outlet gas then by a cooler because the higher it's cooled, the
higher recovery of hydrocarbons occurs. The gas enters the bottom of the absorber
and lean oil enters the top of the absorber. Counter current flow occurs through
trays or packing and during contact lean oil absorbs light and intermediate
hydrocarbons then the gas exits from the top and rich oil exits from the bottom and
enters a de-ethanizer to remove any residual methane and ethane then it enters a
stripper to remove hydrocarbons by vaporization so rich oil becomes lean and it's
recycled to the absorber and also used as a reflux in the de-ethanizer and it heats
the bottom of the de-ethanizer then cooled. Reflux from condenser prevents the
loss of lean oil during stripping.
Properties:-
1- An expensive process
2- Very difficult to operate
3- Very difficult to predict the efficiency
 4- Lean oil deteriorates with time
C3 = 80%, C5+ = 98%

B) Refrigeration
Main Idea: the gas is cooled to a very low temperature using Freon or propane as
refrigerant to condense LPG and NGL.
Mechanism: Firstly, free water is separated from the gas in free water knockout
drum and ethylene glycol is added to lower the dew point and prevent hydrate
formation. Ethylene glycol is used because of its low cost and can't be lost to the
gas phase at low temperatures. The gas is precooled by heat exchanging with the
residue gas then with heavy hydrocarbons separated in the cold separator then it
enters the chiller to be cooled by Freon to -20of or propane when a lower
temperature and higher efficiency for recovery are required. Usually, Freon is
used to limit the lowest temperature to -20of because pipes need special
considerations to be used below -20of. The gas enters the cold separator which is
a three phase separator in which water and glycol are separated from the bottom
and routed to a regenerator where water is boiled off and glycol is recirculated
back, the gas leaves from the top and heavy hydrocarbons are routed to a de-
ethanizer to remove the residual gas.
Properties:-
1- Efficiency of recovery is higher than that of lean oil.
2- It has high capital and operating costs.
3- It can recover a small percentage of ethane but depending on the ability to
cool the inlet stream to -40 of with normal refrigerants.
C3 = 85%, C5+ = 98%

C) Cryogenic plants
Main Idea: the gas is cooled to -100°F to -150°F by expansion through a turbine or
Joule-Thompson (J-T) valve.
Mechanism: Firstly, the water is separated then the gas is dehydrated in a
dehydrator to prevent hydrate formation at low temperatures then the gas is cooled
by heat exchanging with the residue gas to -90°F then the condensed liquids are
separated in a cold separator and routed to de-methanizer and the cold gas pass
through a turboexpander or expansion valve to be expanded and the energy lost by
the gas due to the pressure drop is used by the turboexpander to drive the compressor
used to compress the gas to the sales pressure. After the turboexpander the
temperature of gas becomes -150°F so it enters the top of de-methanizer to remove
condense any ethane or heavier component with it then it's exchanged with the inlet
gas and passes through the driven compressor to be compressed then pass through
another compressor to reach the sales pressure because energy generated by gas
expanding isn't enough due to losses and the residue gas can be also heat exchanged
with the bottom of de-methanizer to be cooled.
Properties:-
1- Cryogenic plants have higher recovery efficiency than lean oil and
refrigeration because of the lower temperature used.
2- It has high capital and operating costs (higher than refrigeration).
3- Ethan can be recovered. C2> 60% , C3> 90%

D) Membrane Separation Process

Main Idea: it's based on using a high flux membrane that's permeable for heavy
hydrocarbons and impermeable for methane then these heavy hydrocarbons are
recovered as liquid after they're recompressed and condensed, while the residue
stream becomes free of heavy hydrocarbons and can be sent to sales gas stream.
Mechanism: Gas permeation membranes are made from hard and transparent
polymers (rubbery membranes) that have a diffusional selectivity so they're very
permeable to heavy hydrocarbons so they pass due to pressure difference and
impermeable for methane. The gas is cooled by heating exchanged with the
residue gas then by a cooler then it enters a separator to separate condensed
heavy hydrocarbons then it passes through the membrane to separate the
 residual heavy hydrocarbons that will be compressed and condensed then pass
through a filter separator to separate them from any light gas that is then mixed
again with the inlet gas stream.
Properties:
1- Simple and low cost process.
2- Used for a wide range of feed conditions.
3- It can be used for offshore applications.
4- It can remove C3+ hydrocarbons.

E) Solid bed adsorption

Main Idea: It's based on using adsorbents to adsorb heavy hydrocarbons from
natural gas. The adsorbent maybe silica gel or activated charcoal but not
activated alumina because heavy hydrocarbons cause fouling of the adsorbent.
Mechanism: The gas passes through the solid bed to remove heavy hydrocarbons
so the process is continuous for the gas then after the bed saturation with heavy
hydrocarbons it's regenerated so the process is cyclical for the adsorbent bed and
regeneration occurs by passing heated recycle gas through the bed then it's
cooled and the liquid hydrocarbons are separated. The cycle time varies between
 20 minutes and several hours depending on how hydrocarbon rich the gas is. To
recover a large fraction of hydrocarbons, we use a short cycle time which is about
1 hour.
Properties:
1- Used when the concentration of heavy hydrocarbons is low.
2- Used when the gas is at high pressure.
3- Easy to operate.
4- Adsorption beds are heavy in weight and expensive.

Selection of NGL recovery process:

Choice of the most cost effective process depends on these factors:-
1- Gas composition
2- Operating conditions
3- Feed gas pressure and allowable pressure drop (Most important)
4- Inlet gas conditions (Pressure, richness and contaminants)
5- Downstream conditions (Residue gas pressure, liquid product desired and
liquid fractionation infrastructure)
6- Overall conditions (Utility cost, fuel value, market stability, plant location and
existing location infrastructure)
Some guidelines for selection:-
 High pressure: use self-refrigeration and if the pressure difference between
the feed gas and treated gas is insufficient, use additional compression.
 Feed gas pressure is close to treated gas pressure and pressure drop is
high: use cryogenic refrigeration process.
 Feed gas pressure is clearly below required pipeline pressure: use
mechanical refrigeration with additional compression.
 Feed gas pressure is equal to or lower than required pipeline pressure: use
solid bed adsorption as it's quick to startup and strong against changes of
feed gas composition and flow rates but it's used for gas with small amount
of heavy hydrocarbons. Richer gases require refrigeration.
- In general, high pressure feed gas favors self-refrigeration with additional
compression, while low pressure feed gas favors solid bed adsorption.
- Because of large liquid recoveries, cryogenic plants are the most common
installed as they are easy to operate and they have a high efficiency although
they're more expensive than refrigeration.
- Refrigeration is used for rich gases where ethane recovery isn't desired.