As a part of innovation activity conducted by Rosneft Oil Company the target innovation project devoted to development of technology for processing of natural and associated petroleum gas using microporous membranes are conducted. In the current work we describe results of industrial tests of the 10 m3/h pilot plant for the membrane treatment of associated petroleum gas in the conditions of Neftegorsk Gas Processing Plant. The plant comprised pertraction module with nanoporous (pore sizes 100×500 nm) polypropylene hollow fibre membrane contactor with total surface area of 7.2 m2 utilizing 20 % monoethanolamine as liquid absorbent and two parallel capillary condensation modules based on hollow-fiber nanoporous polyvinylidenefluoride (surface area ~2 m2) flat sheet anodic alumina oxide (surface area ~0.12 m2) membranes both having 10-nm pores in selective layer. Gases of the second stage of oil separation (24.1 vol. % C3+, 0.21 vol. % CO2, 24.1 mg/m3 H2S and 49,3 mg/m3 RSH at 0.7 MPa) and third stage of oil separation (51.2 vol. % of C3+, 0.87 vol. % CO2, 1.95 vol. % H2S and over 100 mg/m3 RSH at 0.4 MPa) were used as feed streams. During experiments with the II-stage oil gas at a feed flux of 12.5 nm3/h the hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans were nearly completely removed from the gas stream having residual content below 1 mg/m3 and 9.5 mg/m3 correspondingly. Dew point temperature for hydrocarbons was reduced down to -36 °С and water dew point temperature was reduced down to 37 °С. It was shown that the performance of the pilot plant could be increased to 40 m3/h without drastic downgrade of retentate quality. With III-stage oil gas the residual concentrations below 1 mg/m3 H2S and 0.02 vol. % CO2 were achieved on pertraction module with increasing absorbent flow rate. Following treatment with capillary condensation module allowed to reduce RSH content to 5 mg/m3 and achieve dew point temperature both for hydrocarbons and water as low as -31 °С at feed flux of 10,2 nm3/h. Total methane and ethane loss on pilot plant was evaluated below 5 and 7 % from initial content with using II- and III-stage oil gas feed steams. Obtained results confirmed that the proposed technologies can be successfully utilized in conditioning of associated petroleum and natural gas for piping in accordance with the requirements of STO Gazprom 089-2010.
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