High-Pressure Economical Process for Treating Natural Gas

72933-The cost of sulfur removal from natural gas and petroleum has been estimated to be more than $5 billion/year. For sulfur recovery plants in the low-to-medium tons of sulfur per day range, the operating costs of existing liquid phase processes become prohibitive. In particular, the scaled-down combination of the amine+Claus+SCOT processes has very high capital costs. This project will develop a new lower-cost process, DirectTreat, for removing sulfur from natural gas streams. DirectTreat is projected to have lower capital and operating costs than either amine+Claus+SCOT or liquid redox process for small-to-mid sized sulfur recovery plants. In association with several companies in the natural gas and sulfur recovery industries, Phase I optimized a catalyst for the DirectTreat process, conducted an economic analysis, and demonstrated the feasibility of the technology. In Phase II, a series of high pressure natural gas desulfurization tests will be conducted. The best catalyst will then be subjected to lifetime testing at high pressure. In a field test, the catalyst will be used to treat a slip stream of high pressure natural gas at a gas plant. Finally, an economic analysis will be done to compare DirectTreat with current sulfur recovery technologies. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: The DirectTreat process should offer the gas producer and petroleum refiner a much-lower-cost alternative to amine+Claus+SCOT for intermediate-sized sulfur recovery plants. For gas producers, the much lower capital and operating costs should allow the marketing of gas that would otherwise be left in the ground.