Waste gas management on offshore platforms

在石油和天然气的生产和加工过程中，最大的温室气体排放来源之一是燃烧/排放的结果。虽然燃除仅占全球人为二氧化碳排放量的1%，甲烷排放量不到4%，但《京都议定书》已经确定，减少/消除燃除相当于工业化国家温室气体排放潜力减少10%。此外，燃烧产生了大量的氮和硫有机物和多环芳烃（PAH）。事实上，由于单个平台的燃烧，每年向海洋环境中输入的多环芳烃可能在16-2000吨之间，具体取决于燃烧的频率和天然气的体积。在偏远/海上平台上进行天然气/石油联合开采，由于地处偏远且平台空间有限，从经济角度来看，与回收和运输相比，进行天然气/石油燃烧的成本更低。这种产生的气体被称为滞留气体，通常会被燃烧、再注入或用于平台上的公用事业。在许多监管制度中，回注受到限制，在一些深水井中，回注往往会降低整体采收率。此外，处理和压缩气体以进行回注所需的设备成本可能高达上部成本的12%，但没有任何附加价值。最终，天然气的全部或部分回收将最大限度地减少对海洋环境的影响，不仅减少了对海洋环境的排放，而且天然气是一种“更清洁”的化石燃料来源。许多因素决定了是部分回收还是全部回收（通过管道、压缩天然气（CNG）、液化天然气（LNG）和气制液（GTL））。然而，所有的选择都需要在运输/储存之前进行某种平台气体处理，例如冷凝水/NGL的去除、露点控制和/或污染物的去除。这项工作的重点是通过去除ngl和污染物来减少燃烧气体的体积和毒性。

One of the single largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the production and processing of oil and gas is a result of flaring/venting. While flaring only contributes 1% of the world's anthropogenic CO2 and less than 4% of CH4 emissions, the Kyoto protocol has identified that reducing/eliminating flaring is equivalent to a 10% reduction in GHG emissions potential for industrialized countries. In addition, emissions of nitrogen and sulphur organics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are produced from flares in significant amounts. In fact, the input into the marine environment of PAHs due to flaring from a single platform could vary from 16-2000 tonnes/yr depending on the frequency of flaring and volumes of gas. Flaring on remote/offshore platforms derives from gas co-produced with oil where economics dictate flaring is less expensive than recovery and transport (due to remoteness and limited space on the platform). This produced gas is referred to as stranded and is typically flared, re-injected or used for utilities on the platform. Re-injection is restricted in many regulatory regimes and in some deepwater wells the re-injection tended to degrade the overall oil recovery. Further, the equipment required to treat and compress the gas for re-injection can cost up to 12% of the topsides cost but provide no added value. Ultimately recovery of the all or part of the natural gas would minimize environmental impacts by not only decreasing emissions into the marine environment but also as natural gas represents a "cleaner" source of fossil fuel. A number of factors determine the option of either recovering part of the gas stream or all of the gas stream (via pipeline, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and Gas to Liquids (GTL)). However all options require some sort of platform gas treatment prior to transportation/storage such as condensate/NGL removal, dewpoint control, and/or contaminant removal. This focus of this work is to decrease the volume/toxicity of flared gas by removal of NGLs and contaminants.