NATURAL GAS PROCESSING METHOD
First Claim
1. A natural gas processing method of recovering a natural gas liquid (NGL) and a high-pressure sales gas (sales gas) as major products and recovering a liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a co-product from a natural gas, the method comprising:
- a pretreatment process of removing impurities from a feed natural gas to obtain a treated natural gas;
an NGL recovery process of cooling the treated natural gas obtained in the pretreatment process to a temperature at which ethane and heavier hydrocarbons are condensed and liquefied to recover an NGL product and separating a lean gas which mainly contains methane;
a sales gas production process of compressing a part of the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process by a gas compressor to obtain a high-pressure gas which is delivered as a sales gas; and
a natural gas liquefying process of compressing the remaining part of the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process by a gas compressor to obtain a high-pressure gas which exceeds critical pressure, and cooling the high-pressure gas up to a temperature at which methane is condensed and liquefied to thereby obtain an LNG product,the gas compressor used in the sales gas production being used in the natural gas liquefying process as the gas compressor.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A natural gas processing method includes: a pretreatment process of obtaining a treated natural gas; an NGL recovery process of cooling the treated natural gas obtained in the pretreatment process to recover an NGL product composed of ethane and heavier hydrocarbons and to separate a lean gas; a sales gas production process of compressing a part of the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process to obtain a high-pressure gas; and a natural gas liquefying process of cooling the high-pressure gas after the high-pressure gas is obtained by compressing the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process, to thereby obtain the LNG product. In the natural gas processing method, a gas compressor used in the sales gas production process is used as a gas compressor in the natural gas liquefying process.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A natural gas processing method of recovering a natural gas liquid (NGL) and a high-pressure sales gas (sales gas) as major products and recovering a liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a co-product from a natural gas, the method comprising:
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a pretreatment process of removing impurities from a feed natural gas to obtain a treated natural gas; an NGL recovery process of cooling the treated natural gas obtained in the pretreatment process to a temperature at which ethane and heavier hydrocarbons are condensed and liquefied to recover an NGL product and separating a lean gas which mainly contains methane; a sales gas production process of compressing a part of the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process by a gas compressor to obtain a high-pressure gas which is delivered as a sales gas; and a natural gas liquefying process of compressing the remaining part of the lean gas separated in the NGL recovery process by a gas compressor to obtain a high-pressure gas which exceeds critical pressure, and cooling the high-pressure gas up to a temperature at which methane is condensed and liquefied to thereby obtain an LNG product, the gas compressor used in the sales gas production being used in the natural gas liquefying process as the gas compressor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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Specification