Case Studies

TRACERCO Diagnostics™ Separator Study

Carryover Study on Gas Plant

An oil and gas producer recently carried out some major internal modifications on two separation vessels in an attempt to reduce the liquid carryover associated with its gas production unit.

To assess how successful the modifications to the internals were, the customer requested Tracerco carry out a TRACERCO Diagnostics™ Separator study to measure precisely how much liquid, condensate and glycol, was being carried over from each vessel.

The TRACERCO Diagnostics™ Separator study involves injecting phase specific tracer into the inlet stream of the vessel under investigation and monitoring its progress through the vessel using non-intrusive detectors placed at strategic locations around the vessel, such as inlets and outlets.

The technology requires no vessel preparation and the initial results of the study are available immediately. The tracers are specially selected to ensure that they have no effect on either the process or the final product.

Carryover Study on Gas Plant

The study on the gas plant involved injecting both organic (condensate carryover) and aqueous (glycol carryover) tracers into the inlet of each vessel at two different production throughputs.

The schematic diagram below represents the detector set up for each vessel and the position of each injection point.

The results from the TRACERCO Diagnostics™ Separator study indicated that at the high production throughput rate, the Turbo Expander Suction (TES) Drum had a condensate carryover of 9.6% and the Dew Point (DP) Separator 4.5%. At low throughput rates there was no carryover from the DP Separator, with 9.5% carryover from the TES Drum.

At both high and low production throughput rate there was not any carryover of glycol from either vessel.

The results from this study confirmed to the customer that the modifications made to the internals had significantly reduced glycol and partially reduced condensate carryover.

If you would like more information about the TRACERCO Diagnostics™ Separator study or any other Tracerco please contact us.

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