Optimization Study Of Natural Gas Ethane Recovery Process

This paper is based on domestic and foreign natural gas ethane recovery process status, a domestic oil field gas as the basic research data, the main purpose of the ethane recovery process optimization analysis is to reduce energy consumption of the ethane recovery device and improve ethane recovery rate.The HYSYS model of GSP process and RSV process was established and the simulation results of the two methods were compared and analyzed. Through the single factor method and response surface analysis, the operating parameters was defined. The factors for GSP process such as the separator vapor subcooling ratio, demethanizer operating pressure, feed gas pre-cooling temperature were analyzed; The factors for RSV process such as the separator vapor subcooling ratio, demethanizer operating pressure, feed gas pre cooling temperature, dry gas reflux ratio, separator liquid reflux ratio were analyzed. Through the simulation and optimization reduced the energy consumption under the requirement of production. Use the energy loss method analyzed the GSP process and RSV process in the compression process, expansion process, for thermal process and the throttling process.After simulation and optimization, the ethane recovery ratio of GSP process increased from 86.94% to 86.89%, the energy consumption decreased 8.6%. According to the calculation of energy loss, compression process and heat transfer process are the main loss of GSP process.In RSV Process, the ethane recovery ratio increased from 90.15% to 95.03%, the energy consumption decreased 9.1%.According to the calculation of energy loss, compression process and heat transfer process are the main loss of RSV process.According to the preliminary economic analysis, the economic benefit of RSV process is better than GSP process, therefore the RSV process was proposed to be the best program.