Case study of small turbo-expander unit utilization of associated petroleum gas

Purpose and content of the work. In recent years, the trend towards responsibility and environmental friendliness has increasingly captured the oil and gas industry. Modern enterprises focus on regulating and reducing harmful emissions. The combustion of associated petroleum gas (APG) is becoming one of the most important environmental problems of the Russian oil and gas sector, since the volume of APG combustion in our country is the largest in the world. Thus, the Volga Gas company decided to create a project in order to abandon the combustion of associated gas in favor of its subsequent use as an additional production product.

General approach, including the methods used. Due to the fact that about 17 billion rubles are burned annually at Russian enterprises. m³ of associated petroleum gas [4], since it is not the main product and specialization for oil companies, a technology for the utilization of flare equipment and the use of APG as an additional product of production was proposed on the basis of the existing enterprise. Initially, the project of the enterprise assumed the burning of part of the gas on flares, which led to environmental pollution and loss of product. The Volga Gas company assessed the profitability and feasibility of the technical implementation of a new project for the disposal of flares, which showed positive results. Information and 3D modeling have become important tools in the implementation of this project.

Results and main conclusions. As part of the project for the transition from flaring of associated petroleum gas to its processing, the design, selection and purchase of equipment was carried out, which led to the technical re-equipment of the existing enterprise. After the construction, implementation and launch of this technology, additional gas appeared in production, from which useful fractions in the form of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were subsequently isolated. Since the mineral extraction tax (MET) had already been paid, the resulting product was not subject to MET and excise taxes, which led to an increase in production profits. As a result of the exclusion of the waste of a valuable non-renewable resource due to flaring by Volga Gas, an additional production product was obtained, which was subsequently completely processed and sent to the market. Thus, the amount of CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere was reduced, and in addition to the profit from the initial gas production, the enterprise received.

Description of the novelty of the work. Since currently 25-30% of associated petroleum gas is burned at flare plants in Russia, this technology has become a technical breakthrough in the field of greening the production and processing of APG to produce liquefied petroleum gas. Also, a feature of the project carried out by the Volga Gas company was the speed of its implementation: thanks to technical re-equipment, the project was implemented within 6 months. As a result, the installation was successfully introduced into production, and emissions of harmful substances at the existing production decreased several times.

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