An advanced mecaptan removal process has been developed and implemented by RATE. The RATE-Oximer process is an oxidative air-based regeneration process, designed to remove mercaptans from liquid and vapour phases. M. Rameshini of RATE describes the key features of the process and its applications.
Sulphur ’s annual listing of new or recently completed sulphur forming projects worldwide covers both new sour gas and refinery sulphur forming projects as well as upgrades at existing units.
The removal of hydrogen sulphide (H2 S) has become increasingly important as the oil and gas industry moves towards more efficient and sustainable production of lower emission clean fuels. BASF and ExxonMobil* have jointly developed a proprietary amine, OASE® sulfexx™ , to help refiners and gas processors achieve sulphur removal targets while reducing their carbon footprint via lower energy consumption. This new solvent technology is suitable for low and high pressure applications and shows superior performance characteristics over generic and promoted MDEA formulations, as well as sterically hindered amines such as FLEXSORB™ SE and SE Plus.
Sulphur demand in Australia has been boosted by the restart of the nickel leaching plant at Ravensthorpe, and new HPAL projects are under development, but a slew of new phosphate projects are not scheduled to consume more acid domestically.
With the ongoing changes in gas field and refinery feedstock compositions, many sulphur recovery units around the world are facing turndown scenarios to such an extent that it is difficult to meet stringent environmental regulations. Equipment and instrumentation behave differently under turndown conditions, and not always in ways that are desirable. Start-ups and shutdowns can place demands on the equipment that are more severe than years of normal operation. In this article, Optimized Gas Treating, Sulfur Recovery Engineering and Comprimo share some of their learnings and experiences of these scenarios.
BASF has developed a new generation of promoter system compatible with MDEA solutions named OASE® yellow. The new promoter system increases the selectivity and capacity of the amine solvent, resulting in improved performance of tail gas treating units and allowing the processing of more sour crudes. A. Kern and G. Vorberg of BASF discuss two case studies demonstrating the benefits of OASE yellow.
A look at the major factors influencing the sulphur market around the world.
Kuwait is in the middle of a major overhaul and expansion of its refining capacity, as well as boosting LPG output and sour gas processing.
This year appears to be determined to illustrate the limitations of forecasting. Projecting trend lines into the future, looking at expected completion dates for major projects and global economic projections are all worthwhile activities, and can provide valuable insights for business people, but any prediction is apt to be derailed by what one of our prime ministers supposedly once described airily as; “events, dear boy, events.”
Using case studies of a refinery amine unit and a sour water stripper (SWS), U. M. Sridhar of Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP, N. A. Hatcher and R. H. Weiland of Optimized Gas Treating Inc. demonstrate the capabilities of a mechanistic, chemistry-based, truly predictive model for calculating corrosion rates for various amines and for sour water. At a time when asset integrity is much sought after, the utility of this fully predictive model is to prevent failures before they occur, rationally select materials of construction, enhance plant safety, and mitigate risk.