Honeywell says that its UOP Russell business (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) will provide a turn-key cryogenic gas processing plant to Cureton Midstream, LLC (Denver, Colo). The new plant is designed to extract 99% of ethane and 100% of propane from natural gas in Weld County, Colorado, located in the Niobrara basin.
The UOP Russell solution includes supply and installation of modular cryogenic, dehydration, acid gas removal, residue compression, control system, flare system and site electrical equipment, in addition to site utility systems and buildings for office, control room, motor control center, and compressor requirements. The turn-key plant design streamlines project schedules and delivers a custom, gas-specific plant with proven uptime and reliability, built on the experience of nearly 130 previous cryogenic units.
The plant uses an advanced cycle recycle split vapor (RSV) process to recover natural gas liquids (NGLs) from residue gas for use as petrochemical feedstocks, increasing the value of feed gas supplied to Cureton by independent gas producers.
Cryogenic gas processing plants cool the gas in a demethanizer column until the more valuable NGLs precipitate into a liquid. These heavier components extracted from the natural gas can be used as fuels, fuel blending components and other valuable petrochemicals.
The plant is designed to accommodate the NGL-rich gas in Weld County. The plant’s low capital and operating expense, coupled with ultra-high NGL recovery, allowed Cureton to offer gas producers more favorable processing terms, positioning the company to recover very high levels of ethane and propane as prices for those NGLs continue to rise.