THIOPAQ O&G: As flexible as promised
The eternal dilemma: if you design large enough to treat all of the sour gas in the worst case scenario, will you be able to operate the unit when reality is totally different? THIOPAQ O&G is often preferred for its robustness, ease of operation or for its simplicity. However, another important feature is the flexibility of the process when it comes to dealing with variations in feed gas flows and -compositions.
As an example we will discuss the optimization project at one of the operational THIOPAQ O&G units in Texas; installed downstream an amine plant to process the amine acid gas.
The design for this THIOPAQ Oil & Gas plant is for 9.3 LTPD of sulphur and a CO2/H2S ratio of 10 in the feed gas. With an actual operation at < 20 % of the design S-load and CO2/H2S ratio as high as 50 the operation was successfully optimized to deliver the treated gas at the required specification and to minimize utility consumption.
On the face of it this should have been a straightforward optimization service in the field, making use of the built in flexibility of the process. However, this unit was really not running well.
At some point test results indicated that the bacterial activity was unusually low compared to the benchmark, indicating some sort of problem on top of the change in feed gas... More than just optimization was called for.
Learn how the situation was remedied and performance restored to values well below design, setting a new standard.
Presented by
René Bakker,
Paqell Business Manager
Holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration at Utrecht University. After running his own company in motorsports for 10 years René started his first job in the energy business at a Petroplus company as business development manager for heavy fuel generator sets fuelled by animal- and vegetable fats. After a couple of years René switched to KEMA Quality where was employed as Global Sales & Account Manager for KEMA's electrical testing and -certification business.
In 2007 René was selected by Paques, the company that developed the THIOPAQ O&G gas desulphurization technology together with Shell, to head the Paques Oil & Gas Business unit. This activity was merged into Paqell in the summer of 2011, a process conducted by René together with Shell colleague Hans Wijnbelt. As Paqell Business Managers René Bakker & Hans Wijnbelt are responsible for running the Paqell day to day business. The gas desulphurisation challenges you face now and then are our core business.
