Economic Analysis of Upfront Nitrogen Removal from LNG Plant
| Author | Mkacher, Hajer |
| Author | Almomani, Fares |
| Author | Tawalbeh, Muhammad |
| Author | Al-Othman, Amani |
| Available date | 2025-06-25T06:55:44Z |
| Publication Date | 2023 |
| Publication Name | 2023 Advances in Science and Engineering Technology International Conferences, ASET 2023 |
| Resource | Scopus |
| Identifier | http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ASET56582.2023.10180743 |
| ISBN | 978-166545474-2 |
| Abstract | The global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to continue increasing over the next decays. Qatar, as one of the largest LNG exporters with a 22% global share, announced in 2020 a plan to increase the production capacity by more than 60% over the next five years. This work aims to evaluate the economics of upfront nitrogen removal (UNrem) that should save energy, improve efficiency, increase production, and boost economic feasibility. This novel idea of UNrem was investigated through a detailed economic analysis of several UNrem cases. Results showed that the total power requirement and the production rate could be decreased upon the implementation of the UNrem concept. Compared with baseline operation, removing up to 87.5% of nitrogen from the feed was found optimal as it decreases the total power requirement by 0.24 MW and increases the LNG product flow rate by 4.4 %, while exergy loss decreased by 7.08 MW. The UNrem of 87.5% scenarios showed a profit of 24.2 billion USD in 20 years. Results confirmed the importance of the UNrem process for energy savings, process improvement, and profit without the need for structural changes. |
| Sponsor | IV. CONCLUSIONS Energy optimization is important in the LNG industry, especially with the increasing demand in the LNG market. With the current global NG market, it is challenging to increase production without an increase in power consumed and an increase in plant expenses. For this reason, technical enhancements to the current plant should be applied. Seven different removal scenarios are studied using HYSYS and Matlab software integrated for optimization. The aim is to decrease the total energy consumed in the C3MR cycle by studying the effect of refrigerant flow rates and their heat capacity. The results of the optimization of MR composition on UNrem cases show that in the case of 87.5% UNrem, an increase of LNG product flow rates by 4.4 %, 0.241% decrease in total energy consumption of the process, and a decrease of 4% for SPC compared with the base case. The capital cost and operational cost are calculated based on the optimization results taking into account the nitrogen fixation by lithium as a removal technology. This method can result in a profit of 24.1 Billion USD in the case of 87.5% UNrem for a 20 years plant which makes this methodology profitable and economic AKNOLDEGMENT This work was in part funded by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) grant No. NPRP11S-1231-170152. |
| Language | en |
| Publisher | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. |
| Subject | Biogas Cryogenic Refrigeration Sustainability |
| Type | Conference |
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