Mercury removal system at Santa Barbara Extraction Plant
- Corpoven, S.A., Santa Barbara (Venezuela)
The Santa Barbara Extraction Plant is one of the plants of Eastern Cryogenic Complex in Venezuela. It is based on a turboexpansion process that in conjunction with a propane refrigeration system, is able to process 800 MMscfd of the richest gas at North of Monagas to produce 46 Mbpd of natural gas liquid (NGL). Plant`s design has incorporated the utilization of aluminum cryogenic exchanger, which allows heat exchange between cold and hot streams, to obtain temperatures in order of {minus}120 F. One of the risk factors in the operation of this equipment is the presence of mercury in the gas feed. Mercury might cause corrosion in the exchanger. For this reason, before the plant start up, a gas characterization program was done on the sources coming from North of Monagas to detect the presence of mercury. An evaluation showed that the best option was to install a molecular sieve, that would adsorb water and mercury. The performance of this sieve was evaluated once the plant was in normal operation. It was found this sieve could maintain the fundamental objective of reducing the content of water down to less than 0.1 ppmv and, at the same time, keep the level of mercury under 0.01 {micro}gr/Nm{sup 3}, to avoid corrosion in the cryogenic exchanger.
- OSTI ID:
- 418186
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960348--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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