Development of highly contaminated gas & oil fields, breakthrough CO2/H2S Separation Technologies

Abstract

Abstract Description Shell Global Solutions International B.V ("Shell")[1] has been involved for many years in the development of new technologies to separate CO2 and H2S from highly contaminated natural gas streams. This program has been significantly accelerated in recent years and major milestones have been achieved. The program focuses on technology solutions that are critical to develop (stranded) contaminated hydrocarbon gas and oil fields. Several key technical challenges in the development of highly contaminated gas & oil fields have been overcome with new technologies developed by Shell. These challenges include: contaminant separation at minimal energy consumption and losses at minimum capital investment. This paper will present these challenges and introduce new technologies that can help to reduce project development cost by as much as 40% compared to conventional technologies Application External studies (Steiner, 2005) estimate a global (recoverable) resource of some 500 B boe (= 3000 tcf), as per bar chart figure 3 below, of gas that is 'contaminated' by the previously defined levels H2S and/or CO2. These resources will require specific technologies to develop these fields economically. The bulk of these resources are in the Middle East, Canada, CIS, Asia and Australia. In general, one could say that the predominantly H2S contaminated fields can be found in the northern Americas (Canada), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar), and the Caspian regions (Kazakhstan, Russia). The indicated size exclude resources that could be accessed via H2S / CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The application of the newly developed technologies will be in the area of contaminated gas fields. With new technologies highly, contaminated gas fields can be economically developed to remove the contaminants from the hydrocarbon gas and re-injection of the contaminants. Since conventional technologies become less economic at increasing percentages of contaminant, the new technologies are specifically targeted at high concentrations of contaminants (>30%). The new technologies aim for efficiencies above 85 %, where efficiency is expressed as a percentage of hydrocarbon sales gas divided by the hydrocarbon feed stream. (Losses are due to fuel gas and hydrocarbons left in the contaminant stream.)