Yannelyz Covarrubias:
I’m here with Chris today, and he’s going to be talking about the composition of natural gas. So, Chris, what is natural gases?
What is natural Gas?
Chris Smithson:
So, natural gas is actually a mixture of multiple different compounds, primarily hydrocarbons. And they come in a couple of different sizes of hydrocarbons in the natural gas, but also different contaminants such as CO2, they may be mixed in there. It all depends on the well or formation, where you’re drilling that, what kind of combination of natural gas you might have.
Yannelyz Covarrubias:
And what is a hydrocarbon?
What is a hydrocarbon?
Chris Smithson:
So, a hydrocarbon is a compound of hydrogen and carbon. The smallest version would be this, which is methane, a single carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms. Now, these can combine together into longer chain hydrocarbons, such as ethane. So, ethane’s got two carbons and six hydrogens. And ethane, we use a lot for plastic manufacturing. So, ethane will be turned into the plastics that we use a lot in our everyday life. Then you make the chain a little longer and you get propane. And propane is used for heating fuels and other petrochemical processes. And we can keep going and create even longer and longer chains like a four carbon here, which would be butane, which is used for heating fuel and other things. And then you get five for pentane and so and so on to get more like natural gasoline until you finally get into the actual things that we consider to be crude oil.
Yannelyz Covarrubias:
And what are the other contaminants that need to be cleaned up from the natural gas?
What are the other contaminants that need to be cleaned up from the natural gas?
Chris Smithson:
So, it really depends on the well that you’re drilling, what kind of contamination you might have. But one common to nearly every well would be water. And when we talk about water with natural gas, we mean water vapor. Now the well may come with liquid water come up from the underground, but water vapors like humidity in the air. So, we want to remove this because of the corrosion and freezing potential that it may cause within the natural gas. And then we also have CO2. So, CO2 is corrosive and can create damage to pipelines or equipment. So, we’re going to want to remove this out of there as well as H2S. Now, H2S or hydrogen sulfide isn’t going to be in every well and it may be even very small amounts, but it is very toxic and very corrosive. So, this is usually something that we remove very early on in the process. And then we also have some inerts in the gas as well, such as nitrogen or helium or argon. And in fact, most of the helium that we use comes from natural gas.
Yannelyz Covarrubias:
And what kind of equipments do we use to clean up natural gases?
What kind of equipments do we use to clean up natural gases?
Chris Smithson:
So, the equipment that we’re going to need is going to depend on what we’re trying to remove. So, if we’re trying to remove water from the gas, then we’re going to want to a dehydrator, so like a Tri-ethylene Glycol unit or a Passive Dehydration System that’ll dry that gas out and remove this. Now, if you want to remove CO2, then you’re looking at probably an Amine Plant. For good bulk removal, that’s the traditional way. And an Amine Plant can also remove hydrogen sulfide as well. But if you’re just trying to remove hydrogen sulfide, then there’s a couple of different processes. They’re usually consumable processes like an Iron Oxide or a liquid H2S scavenger that can neutralize this and separate it out from the system. Now for inerts, these are usually removed in downstream processes. Usually, a molecular sieve or some cryogenic process that can remove out the nitrogens or other inerts that are in the gas. When we think of contaminants, we also might have hydrocarbons that may need to be removed. Now these longer chain hydrocarbons, if they’re long enough, they may turn back into a liquid. So, we may want to remove these from the gas so that they don’t turn into a liquid and end up screwing up equipment further down the line. We remove these with things like JT Units or mechanical refrigeration units, which will cold separate these out. And larger facilities, you may have a cryogenic unit that’s going to get to very, very cold temperatures that can remove all the way up to the ethane that might be in the natural gas, leaving you nice clean methane to send to your house or to your power plant or other industrial processes that use it.
Yannelyz Covarrubias:
Thank you so much for explaining that, Chris, and join us in our next video. Bye.
