Economic tail gas treatment unit alternative in natural gas processing

Abstract

Reducing Sulphur emissions to the environment has been a major drive for ADNOC in recent years. Over the years more advanced technologies have been applied to reach the targets. The most recent plants area applying a version of the SCOT^TM process with Sulphur Recovery Efficiencies above 99.9%. Khalifa University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota have been developing a novel Tail Gas Treating Unit process based on a temperature swing adsorption (TSA) with the potential to compete with the SCOT^TM process, the standard in the industry. The technology can achieve almost complete sulfur recovery at a reduced cost. This technology can be applied to meet the specification in older plants that are not equipped with latest technology as well as coupled with existing acid gas removal technologies to meet increasing stringent requirements. The aim of this work is to compare the net present worth cost of the two processes. For a 600 ton/day, 30 year plant lifetime, it was found that the TSA process offers a significant saving in capital expenditure over the SCOT process with a similar operating expenditure, translating to an approximately 33% lower net present worth cost (NPWC). Results and suggested configurations are presented in this work.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90329©2018 AAPG/SEG/EAGE/SPE Middle East Region RDPETRO, Abu Dhabi, UAE, May 9-10, 2018