Symptoms of high liquid loading at the downstream gas processing plant required gathering feed rates to be reduced to operate the production facility without upset conditions or risk of equipment damage.
In gas processing facilities, high liquid contaminant loads in process streams can cause contactor, heat exchanger and reboiler fouling leading to lower throughput for the pipeline and loss of revenue for the facility.
The reduction in processing capacity required upstream gathering to reduce well head production by 25% for their facility.
The drop in capacity meant lower profitability for the entire value chain and a loss in revenue of $20-25K a day based on the production loss and current price of Natural gas. (10MMSCFD x ~$2.5/MMBTU).
Profitability challenges and shut in requests from the downstream gas processing plant drove the need to explore solutions for a technology which could guarantee efficient and consistent contaminant removal over the entire process range to return to the original 40MMSCFD well capacity.