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Past Issues Processing News PROCESS SAFETY1: Gas conditioning failures show need for design scrutiny
Brian Pack
BP America Production Co.
Houston
Aubry Shackelford
Inglenook Engineering Inc.
Sugar Land, Tex.
Based on a presentation to the Laurance Reid Gas Conditioning Conference, Feb. 24-27,
2013, Norman, Okla.
Review of certain oil and gas operations offers lessons on process safety to designers of gas conditioning. Those
operations include upstream NGL processing, onshore gas conditioningsuch as glycol dehydration and amine
sweetening, and dewpoint process plants, instead of booster compressor stations, offshore production platforms,
and floating production, storage, and offloading vessels.
Part 1 of this two-part series presents four process safety examples of possible inadequate overpressure protection
design related to amine sweetening, glycol dehydration, and molecular sieve dehydration. The examples reflect
systematic design problems in traditional gas-conditioning overpressure protection analysis and reveal ways to
improve future designs.
The concluding article (OGJ, June 3, 2013) discusses opportunities for embedding inherently safer design (ISD)
concepts and frequently encountered issues in design of protective systems for these gas-conditioning units.
These examples emphasize the need to raise awareness that designs of gas conditioning systems must do more
than simply meet process specification; they must consider robust process safety features dealing with hazardous
materials and process conditions.
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The higher transient relief load from the switching valve failure is caused by the volumetric imbalance and pressure
imbalance. The volume upstream of the switching valve is 1.3 times greater than the gas expansion volume
available in the regeneration section (including the flare header).
Depressuring of this volume at operating pressure to relieve conditions across the fixed flow area of the failed-open
switching valve is at a much higher rate than the steady-state flow rate into the plant.
Once the upstream stored volume is exhausted by the higher depressuring rate, the relief requirement becomes the
steady-state rate. These two factors explain the continuing pressure rise when the rupture disk burst in the example.
Modeling performed later supported the bottleneck in the relief system during a switching-valve failure. A HYSYS
depressuring model was built to simulate the transient conditions described.
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Upon contact with the heated glycol-water system, the condensate started boiling and exited to the atmosphere via
the normal vent on the still. The condensate discharge contacted the nearby uninsulated flue stack, resulting in a fire
(Fig. 4).
This example illustrates a common approach to design in which the hazard analysis is limited to considerations
found in normal operations. The typical design for a glycol reconcentration system with a direct-fired gas heater, with
the exhaust flue stack from the heater close to the atmospheric vent from the still, is not even considered a potential
hazard because the normal vented material is water vapor.
As this example shows, however, various process upsets can force hydrocarbons out of the vent, allowing the flue
stack to become an ignition source.
Overfilling
The following example resulted in carryover of amine to the flare. While a detailed analysis of the root cause of the
occurrence and detailed corrective actions were developed, only a brief summary of the cause and corrective actions
taken is presented in this first article of the series.
Product breakthrough
In a typical amine unit operation, the rich amine from a contactor column is sent, via a level-control valve, to a flash
tank operating at much lower pressures, allowing some of the dissolved gases to flash off.
API Standard 521, 5th Edition (2010), 5.10.3, notes that a credible cause of overpressure for the flash tank is failure
of the level control valve or loss of liquid upstream, with subsequent flow of the high-pressure gas (known as
"breakthrough" or "blow-by") into the flash tank.
In addition, this type of overpressure was highlighted in the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's
1998 investigation into the explosion at the Temple 22-1 Common Point Separation facility in Pitkin, La.
In a recent incident in Red River Parish, La., during start-up of an amine unit, an amine flash tank overpressured
when an operator manually set the level-control valve fully open and left it unattended. The flash tank had a
pressure-relief valve, but the isolation block valves downstream of the pressure relief device were closed and not
opened before the start-up. Without means to relieve the pressure, the amine flash tank subsequently ruptured (Fig.
6).
While initial reaction may be to point to the isolated pressure relief device as the main cause in this example, a
closer look reveals several needed improvements. Lack of sufficient isolation/by-pass controls was apparent not
only with the pressure relief device remaining isolated during start-up but also with operation of the level control
valve.
In addition, the pressure relief device was likely sized inadequately to limit the pressure during the event to the
maximum allowable accumulation pressure: The flow rate of a gas through a level-control valve that is normally
passing liquid is substantially greater than the normal liquid flow and should be considered fully in the design basis
for overpressure protection.
This is yet another example of hazard analysis limited to considerations based solely on normal operation, while the
potential for high-pressure gas to flow through the control valve may not have been considered.
The authors
Brian Pack (brian.pack@bp.com) is a process safety and relief systems technical authority for BP
America Production Co., North America Gas Region, Houston, for which he has also served as
midcontinent area engineering support team leader. Pack holds a BS in chemical engineering
from the University of Oklahoma, is a registered professional engineer in Texas and Oklahoma,
and is a member of AIChE.
Aubry Shackelford (aubry@inglenookeng.com) is principal engineer and president
of Inglenook Engineering Inc., Sugar Land, Tex. He has also served as process
technology manager for Lloyd's Register Energy Americas. Shackelford holds a
BS in chemical engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, and is a registered professional
engineer in Texas, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts, and Alberta. He is also a member of AIChE,
SPE, and the National Society of Professional Engineers.
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