HYBRISOL, A NEW GAS TREATMENT PROCESS FOR SOUR NATURAL GASES

摘要

IFP and TotalFinaElf have been developing for several decades innovative gas treatment technologies to better meet current environmental and economic demands. For almost 20 years, IFP has been working on the use of methanol as hydrate inhibitor in the commercially proven IFPEX-1 process for dehydration and NGL recovery and as a physical solvent for the removal of acid gases in the IFPEX-2 process. Meanwhile, TotalFinaElf has since the mid-fifties acquired extensive know-how in alkanolamines, on both the R&D and operating sides. The two companies have decided to pool their resources to develop a new sour gas treatment technology trademarked Hybrisol. This process integrates dehydration, NGL extraction, and acid gas removal steps using a single hybrid solvent, a mixture of methanol, water and amine. Hybrisol produces sweet dry pipeline gas, sweet NGL, and dry pressurized acid gases, facilitating their recompression for reinjection applications. The process will be applicable to most sour to very sour hydrocarbon-rich natural or associated gas. This paper presents the main features of Hybrisol and takes stock of the R&D work completed to date.