Process Description

 

Natural gas condensate stabilization and fractionation processes reduce the vapor pressure of liquid hydrocarbon condensate to a value ensuring safety during transportation and storage, and perform an important separation of lighter from heavier ends. The natural gas condensate is either stabilized to remove C1-C4 hydrocarbons in a single column, or is fractionated in stages sequentially removing one or more of ethane (C2), propane (C3) and butane (C4) in multiple columns.

 

The stabilized condensate has had the more volatile ‘light ends’ stripped out, making it less susceptible to spark ignition. The separated products are also more valuable as petrochemical feedstocks or other uses. Keeping the column(s) free from fouling and corrosion from salty water and solids ingression is critical to maintain process efficiency and reliability.

 

Gas Condensate Stabilization Plant Needs

 

  • Achieve or exceed condensate and lighter products production quotas via reliable stabilization/fractionation and separation of natural gas condensate
  • Maintain process reliability for consistency of natural gas and condensate production, minimization of downtime, and reduced maintenance of the condensate stabilization unit
  • Improve process safety by reducing the need for column and reboiler cleanouts and internals replacements
  • Provide stable operation, consistent on-spec sales condensate
Stabilized Condensate Production Challenge Pall Solution
  • Increased downtime and maintenance, process upsets causing off-spec products due to deposits and corrosion in stabilizer columns and reboiler caused by salty water and particulate contaminants in the condensate that do not easily separate due to stable emulsions

Improve your stabilizer productivity and reliability with effective liquid water and solid removal upstream of the stabilizer to protect against deposits and corrosion.

 

  • Solid particle contaminants in condensate are mostly very fine corrosion products that may not be adequately removed by filters that exhibit poor removal performance, unloading, media migration, channeling, or poor sealing.
  • A range of absolute and nominal rated filter elements is available to reduce suspended solids to <5 ppmw, keep the process equipment clean, and reduce related fouling issues.
  • High efficiency AquaSep® ELAquaSep® XS Coalescers, or  PhaseSep® EL Liquid/Liquid coalescers reliably meet ‘clear and bright’ product specification and <20 ppmw downstream per Aqua-Glo1 measurement to maximize salt and water removal. Offering excellent process equipment protection from brine-initiated corrosion and fouling.

Condensate Stabilization Unit Work Flow Diagram

Key Application/Filter Recommendations (other applications not shown)

 

Application Pall Products Customer Benefits
Prefiltration prior to liquid/liquid coalescer Ensure long life of the coalescers, eliminate particulate fouling of the stabilizer columns
Stabilizer column protection Safe and reliable production of hydrocarbon liquids by protecting stabilizer columns from brine-initiated corrosion and fouling

Read our case study on how Pall PhaseSep Coalescers have proven to be highly effective in protecting condensate stabilizers

For fast track upgrades, NO CAPEX:

 

Pall Replacement filters and coalescer retrofits enable a move to Pall quality without change to your existing filter housing

 

Pall filter and coalescer housing rentals enable a technology upgrade for rapid problem resolution

 

Experience Matters

 

Don’t take our word for it. Just ask the thousands of oil and gas engineers around the world why Pall is their supplier of choice for filtration and separations solutions. Let them tell you how our extended filter life and simple maintenance protocols save them time that can be spent on value-add process improvements. Ask them about the reliability and consistent output from the Pall systems installed in their critical processes. You don’t want to spend time worrying about your filters and coalescers, and we don’t want you to either.

 

Contact Pall today and let us put our 50+ years of experience to work for you.

For more information on improving the efficiency of your processes, contact our team of filtration experts.

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