Calgary based Gas Liquids Engineering announces the availability of SABR, a new licensed process for propane and ethane extraction from natural gas, in many cases using 5-20% less energy than competitive processes.
"We are truly thrilled to offer SABR at this time to the natural gas processing industry", stated Gas Liquids Engineering Vice President Operations, Stuart MacKenzie. "In many cases, SABR can recover propane and ethane with lower energy use, and better turndown than the historically used deep-cut technologies. Not only does this equate to significant reductions in CO2 emissions, it also lowers gas plant operating costs."
SABR stands for "Split ABsorber Reflux", covering multiple variations of the process, intended for increased recovery of natural gas liquids (NGL) from natural gas, in a variety of applications. Deep-cut extraction plants historically rely on a piece of equipment called a turboexpander to provide the cooling needed to deeply extract liquids from natural gas. The SABR process is unique, as it instead uses standard propane refrigeration, shell and tube heat exchangers, and distillation to achieve propane or ethane recovery from natural gas of up to 99%. The use of refrigeration allows the process to achieve very high recoveries even under turned-down operation. As the outlet pressure of gas leaving the process is much higher than turboexpander based processes, the recompression requirements after processing are dramatically reduced, creating new opportunities for energy and emissions reductions.
Courtesy of Gas Liquids Engineering.