Capital budgets have been slashed to the bone, but gas still has to be processed, or risk the potential of having oil production shut in because of flaring regulations. To overcome this dilemma, companies are now reviewing their existing gas treating and processing facilities to determine how they can get more out of them with little or no capital expenditures.
Many of the plants put in over the last several years have been stock, “cookie-cutter” type plants which could be delivered and put in service quickly, which was what was needed at the time. This resulted in numerous plants being installed that were not a good fit for the specific application being addressed, thus oftentimes leaving the operator with poor product recoveries and higher than desired operating and maintenance costs. Additionally, since there are very limited capital funds to install new plants, the demand for these existing gas plants to increase throughput and recovery levels continues to be a top priority for midstream operating companies.
The most logical answer seems to come in the form of modifying the existing plants with “after-market accessories.” This may include simple things (such as rearranging some piping or changing operating parameters) to adding additional equipment (such as a secondary distillation column or additional refrigeration). The key, in almost every case, is to get more out of what you already have for less money and that is where S-Con can be a tremendous help to our clients. S-Con’s experienced and knowledgeable process engineers work closely with our customers to thoroughly investigate various options and opportunities to enhance plant performance and operation and, once a direction has been agreed upon, then fully develop the solution and implement it into the existing plant design.
Working together, S-Con and its clients can increase the performance and capacity of existing plants.