KLEENHEAT GAS – KWINANA PRODUCTION FACILITY

September 2014

Adam Stevens, Trisha King and Tim Snowdon

Kleenheat Gas

• Gas production and distribution

• Established in 1956
• Over 700 permanent employees Australia-wide

We produce and distribute:

– Bulk LPG*
– Autogas
– LPG* in cylinders (190 kg and Kwik Gas)
– Supply of LNG for remote power generation
– Supply of LNG as an alternative to diesel used by Heavy Duty Vehicles

* LPG – primarily composed of propane

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Kwinana Production Facility

• LPG Extraction Plant (LEX) – Pipeline Straddle Plant – Cryogenic

extraction of Propane, Butane and Condensate from Natural Gas
• LNG Plant – Treatment and Liquefaction of a small portion of the
residue gas from the LEX Plant to produce Liquefied Natural Gas
• 350,000 t/annum LPG (Propane, Butane)
– Domestic Propane
– Export Propane
– Export Butane
– C5+ “Condensate” co-product to BP Kwinana Refinery
• 65,000 t/annum LNG
• 60 Employees, 15 Long Term Contractors

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Site Layout

4
 Process Block Diagram

LNG
Residue Natural Gas Natural Gas
To Pipeline Recompression
Trains 1 & 2

Natural Gas Feed

From Pipeline Cryogenic
Molecular
NGL NGL Condensate
Sieve
Extraction Fractionation Storage
Dehydration
Trains 1 & 2

Domestic Condensate to BP
Propane to Domestic Sales LPG Kwinana Refinery
Storage Molecular
Sieve
Treating

Export
Propane & Butane LPG
To Export Sales Storage

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Trends in Pipeline Flow and Composition

• Over time, natural gas demand in the South-West region of Western

Australia has increased, leading to higher Dampier-Bunbury pipeline
flows
• In recent years North West Shelf gas producers have improved their
LPG extraction capabilities
• The net result is higher DBP flows with reduced Natural Gas Liquids
(NGLs) content
Original Plant Today
What is a TJ? It is a quantitative unit of
Inlet Flow 300 TJ/day 520 TJ/day
measure based on the Gross Heating Value
C1 82.93 88.50 of mass unit of hydrocarbon. A Terajoule is
C2 8.14 5.35 a lot of energy and gas, roughly equivalent
C3 3.22 1.23 to 26000 Sm3 or 20 metric tonnes of gas.
i-C4 0.51 0.11
n-C4 0.73 0.19 Our industry measures gas in units of
i-C5 0.01 0.04 energy because its end use is… energy!
n-C5 0.00 0.04
C6 0.01 0.02 Use your simulator to calculate the “GHV
Active”. This is the accurate way to convert
N2 1.75 2.31
- the GHV is a function of composition.
CO2 2.70 2.21

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Molecular Sieve Dehydration

• Remove moisture from plant feed

• Alumina silicate (zeolite) adsorption
beds, mol sieve type 3A
• Packed bed, temperature swing
adsorption
• Moisture adsorption: 100 mg/Sm3
design to 0.1 mg/Sm3
• 2.5 mg/Sm3 typical inlet water content
• 2 beds on line, 1 bed on regeneration

What would you expect to happen to the

molecular sieve driers when the plant flow
increases from 300 TJ/day to 520 TJ/day?

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Absorber Flow Diagram
2820 kPag
Dampier – Bunbury Pipeline

Absorbent from
5050 kPag Fractionation
16 °C Water &
Particulate Gas-gas
Removal Booster Exchanger Expander
Absorber

4800 kPag
32 °C
Recompressor
NGLs to
Fractionation

1st Principle of Thermodynamics – Conservation of Energy

For practicing Chemical engineers – Nothing comes for free!
Where is most of the work being done on this system to separate the NGLs from
the bulk natural gas?
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Absorber Flow Diagram… More Detail

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Absorber Photo

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Tips for the Absorber and Deethaniser

• Absorber: 15 ideal stages, De-ethaniser 30 ideal stages

• Deethaniser absorbent enters stage 1
• Cold Separator overheads enters stage 3
• Expander outlet enters stage 5 (bottom of the wide section)
• Cold Separator bottoms enters stage 9
• Side boiler (thermosiphon) take off Stage 11, return Stage 12
• Reboiler take off Stage 14, return Stage 15
• Deethaniser specifications: suggest propane/ethane ratio in overheads
and ethane/propane ratio in bottoms for model stability
• -40°C at the gas-gas exchanger outlet, -93°C absorbent (after JT effect)
from cold sep and -70°C absorbent from deC2 should get you started
• What is the goal? Extract the NGLs while minimising methane and, to a
lesser extent, ethane to the de-ethaniser

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Expander-Compressor
80% adiabatic
efficiency for the
compressor and 87%
for the expander are
typical for new designs.

Allow 1-2% work loss

to friction, bearing etc.

System can be
iteratively solved such
that absorber inlet
pressure is achieved
while keeping
compressor/expander
work equal (minus
losses!).

• Compressor wheel acts in the same manner as a centrifugal compressor

• Driving power extracted from expander unit
• Design speed 14,000 rpm
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Brazed Alumimium Plate Fin Heat
Exchangers
• Compact and very efficient
• Clean service essential
• At sufficiently “high”
concentrations and low
temperatures water forms
hydrates and and CO2
sublimes to form a solid
2.5°C is a practical, robust target
approach temperature for plate fin
heat exchangers.
Approaches as low as 1°C can be
achieved.
For large gas phase streams, 100
kPa is a reasonable target delta P.
For smaller mixed phase streams, 50
kPa is reasonable.
These thermosiphons have design
delta P of 1 psi (~7 kPa).
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Recompressor

Driven by ~10MW
of net usable
power generated
by a 16,000 HP
Solar-Mars Gas
Turbine
How would you
expect the net
power to change
between summer
and winter?
80% polytropic
efficiency is a
reasonable
number for a
modern gas
compressor
design of this
size.

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Fractionation

• Conventional distillation
• Fin fan total condensers with flooded
reflux drums
• Kettle reboilers with hot oil heating
medium
What temperature is the cooling medium for the column
overheads? How does it vary?

Allow a big delta T for fin fan condensers – LMTD 15

degrees Celsius. Don’t forget hot days!

Where to find out what the product specifications are?

How does one work out what the pressure needs to be in

each of the columns?

How do you work out how many theoretical trays are

required?
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Product Treating and Storage

Treaters:
• Propane/Butane products “treated” via
liquid phase molecular sieve treaters
• Removal of sulphur species
Domestic Storage:
• Domestic supply stored in two 300 tonne
bullets
• Storage of either Propane or Butane
• Rundown at 16°C
Export storage:
• Three 13,000 tonne bunded tanks
• 2 propane storages, 1 butane
• Storage at near atmospheric pressure
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Refrigeration

• Two refrigeration circuits on site, LEX plant refrigeration and Export

refrigeration.
• LEX refrigeration provides cooling duty for Train 1 deethaniser
overhead condenser and domestic product rundown.
• Export refrigeration provides the additional cooling required to cool
liquid propane and butane for storage at 1 kPag and also recondense
boil off gas from export tanks.
• Both circuits use propane as the refrigerant.
• Both circuits utilise two stages of compression with no intercooling.
• Air is the condensing medium.
• Low level refrigerant in LEX refrigeration is used for the Train 1 de-ethaniser condenser.
• High level refrigerant in LEX refrigeration is used for domestic rundown chilling.
• Boil off gas in export refrigeration is routed to the first stage suction.
• Low level export refrigerant is used to further cool the export rundown.
• High level refrigerant is used to precool boil off gas condensed as liquid in the export
refrigeration accumulator prior to return to the export tanks via the low level chiller.
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Questions

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LNG 175 t/d

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Block Diagram

Unit 47 Unit 41
Refrigerant Make-Up Refrigeration
System System

Feed Gas
from LPG Unit 23
Plant BL Unit 12 Unit 16 Unit 16
CO2 Removal Feed Gas Chiller Dehydration Natural Gas
Liquefaction

Unit 35 Unit 73
Tank Return Gas LNG Storage
Compressor

Unit 73
LNG Loading
Station
LNG Product
to Domestic
Sales

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Unit 12 – CO2 Removal

• CO2 removed to prevent freezing during

liquefaction stage of process
• Wash Column to remove CO2 from NG
feed using activated-MDEA solvent
• Counter-current contact between solvent
and feed gas to remove CO2 component
• Stripper Column to regenerate a-MDEA
solvent for re-use in Wash Column
• Operated at high temperature (~120°C) to
achieve adequate stripping

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Unit 16 – Feed Gas Chiller
• Feed: Overhead gas from Amine Wash Column at 48°C
• Gas routed to tube side of chiller where cooled by shell side
propane refrigerant from LPG plant
• Chilled temperature ~20°C to prevent formation of hydrates

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Unit 16 – Dehydration

• Feed: Wet, chilled, sweetened gas

• Remaining moisture removed by

adsorption onto mol sieve bed in Feed
Gas Driers

• Driers used interchangeably, with cycle

time of 24 hours. After this time, flow
transferred to stand-by drier, used drier
regenerated. Overlap time = 1 hour

• Adsorbent bed regenerated using

recompressed tank return gas at
~200°C. Time = 10½ hours

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Unit 23 – NG Liquefaction

• Process gas fed to Cold Box and enters

warm part of Liquefaction Heat
Exchangers, pre-cooled to -80°C

• Via Joules Thompson valve, enters top

of Demethaniser Column where C2+
component condenses and flows down
column and to HMR Subcooler

• Light component (CH4) exits top of

column at <2mol% C2+. Routed to cold
section of Liquefaction Heat
Exchangers, cooled in stages to -135°C

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Unit 41 – Refrigeration Cycle

• A closed single Mixed Refrigerant Cycle provides the cooling for

the liquefaction stage. Refrigerant comprises methane, ethane,
butane and nitrogen

• Compressed using Cycle Compressor

• Cycle Separator separates

mixed refrigerant into two
phases: heavy liquid and
light vapour. This
optimises the refrigeration
process

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Unit 41 – Cycle Compressor

• Mixed refrigerant compressed using Cycle Compressor driven by a

gas turbine unit

• Mixed refrigerant enters compressor at 45°C and 214 kPag

• Compressed in stages to 3065

kPag

• Gas is partially condensed,

giving a two phase flow into
Cycle Separator

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Unit 47 – Refrigerant Make-up

• Required due to cycle gas losses via

gas seals of Cycle Compressor

• Necessary quantities of refrigerant

components adjusted according to
composition readings and
temperatures in the cryogenic
section of the process

• Make-up quantities are added

manually as required

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Unit 73 – LNG Storage

• Liquefied LNG from Cold Box

routed to LNG Storage Sphere

• Capacity = 4000 m3

• Operating Pressure = 250

kPag

• Continuous operation during

liquefaction process with net
filling rate of ~17.8 m3/hr (7.3
t/hr LNG)

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Unit 35 – Tank Return Gas

• Net flash/boil-off and displacement gas evolved in LNG Storage

Sphere routed to Return Gas Compressor

• Compressed in two stages to ~3650 kPag and used in Feed Gas

Driers then to the existing LPG sales gas system

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Unit 73 – LNG Loading

• LNG from tank routed to LNG Pumps which export LNG to road
tankers via loading bays. Each pump has capacity 100 m3/hr

• Loading facility can handle two truck trailers (front and rear)
simultaneously. Tankers connected via manual loading arms,
which also allow vapour return to Sphere

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Unit 91 – Cold Flare System

• Cryogenic nature of materials within

LNG plant means that the existing
Warm Flare cannot be used

• Expelled cryogenic hydrocarbons are

routed via a network of common
headers into a blow down drum

• Routed to flare stack to be mixed with

air and ignited by pilot flames

• Pilot flames maintained at flare head

using fuel gas from LPG facility

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Questions

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