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Natural gas condensate
Natural gas condensate is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. It condenses out of the raw gas if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature of the raw gas. The natural gas condensate is also referred to as simply condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range. Raw natural gas may come from any one of three types of gas wells:[1][2]
Additional recommended knowledge
Composition of natural gas condensateThere are hundreds of wet gas fields worldwide and each has its own unique gas condensate composition. However, in general, gas condensate has a specific gravity ranging from 0.5 to 0.8 and may contain:[3][4][5][6]
Separating the condensate from the raw natural gasThere are quite literally hundreds of different equipment configurations for the processing required to separate natural gas condensate from a raw natural gas. The schematic flow diagram to the right depicts just one of the possible configurations.[7] The raw natural gas feedstock from a gas well or a group of wells is cooled to lower the gas temperature to below its hydrocarbon dew point at the feedstock pressure and that condenses a good part of the gas condensate hydrocarbons. The feedstock mixture of gas, liquid condensate and water is then routed to a high pressure separator vessel where the water and the raw natural gas are separated and removed. The raw natural gas from the high pressure separator is sent to the main gas compressor. The gas condensate from the high pressure separator flows through a throttling control valve to a low pressure separator. The reduction in pressure across the control valve causes the condensate to undergo a partial vaporization referred to as a flash vaporization. The raw natural gas from the low pressure separator is sent to a "booster" compressor which raises the gas pressure and sends it through a cooler and on to the main gas compressor. The main gas compressor raises the pressure of the gases from the high and low pressure separators to whatever pressure is required for the pipeline transportation of the gas to the raw natural gas processing plant. The main gas compressor discharge pressure will depend upon the distance to the raw natural gas processing plant and it may require that a multi-stage compressor be used. At the raw natural gas processing plant, the gas will be dehydrated and acid gases and other impurities will be removed from the gas. Then the ethane (C2), propane (C3), butanes (C4) and C5 plus higher molecular weight hydrocarbons (referred to as C5+) will also be removed and recovered as byproducts. The water removed from both the high and low pressure separators will probably need to be processed to remove hydrogen sulfide before the water can be disposed of or reused in some fashion. Some of the raw natural gas may be re-injected into the gas wells to help maintain the gas reservoir pressures. References
Categories: Chemical engineering | Chemical processes | Unit processes |
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Natural_gas_condensate". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |