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Sweetening of Sour Crude Using Gas

Stripping Process
By

G. W. Clanton, Member AIME, and R. E. Gipson, Rhodes Technology Corp.

© Copyright 1969
American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.
This paper waS prepared for the 44th Annual Fall Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers
of AIME to be held in Denver, Colo., Sept. 28-0ct. 1, 1969. Permission to copy is restricted to an
abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain
conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after
publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is
usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give
proper credit is made.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the
Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and,
with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

ABSTRACT Design and installation of a

A reduction of the hydrogen sul-
fide content of crude oil can be ac-
complished by stripping with gas in a
contact tower at low pressures. In
addition, stabilization of the oil or
condensate is accomplished simul-
taneously with less shrinkage and tank
losses as compared with multi-stage
separation.
Several simplified processes can
be utilized to accomplish the desired
results and are discussed in the paper.
A computer program is available which
will simplify the tray-by-tray equi-
librium calculations for design pur-
poses. The process can be adapted to
both small and large installations and
sulfur recovery from the sour overhead
vapor may be added to the larger in-
stallations in order to accomplish a
shorter payout. Also some form of
hydrocarbon recovery from the stripping
and flash gas would be desirable in
areas where gas liquids have any value.
References and illustrations at end of
paper.
unit was made which reduces the sulfur
content from 500 ppm to less than
30 ppm using sweet natural gas for
stripping and at the same time reduces
the vapor pressure to less than
15 psia @ 100°F to preventvaporiza-
tion losses during transportation in
warm ocean waters. The processes
shown herein afford a method whereby
the HZS content of sour crude oil or
condensate can be reduced at the pro-
duction site. This helps to produce
a more valuable product and prevent
pollution problems before they occur
in the more populated refinery area.
INTRODUCTION
Sweetening of sour crudes has
recently become more important with
the advent of new pollution control
regulations and increased refinery
treating costs. The stripping process
utilizes Henry's law which states that
the amount of a slightly soluble gas
that dissolves in a liquid at a given
temperature is very nearly proportional
to the amount of the particular gas in
the surrounding atmosphere. By re-
placing that atmosphere with sweet
z Sweetening of Sour Crude Using Gas Stripping Process
natural gas or some other inert gas
the HZS is evaporated from the solu-
tion and carried away in the overhead
gas effluent. The basic principle is
the same if we use an inert gas such
as engine exhaust gas if sweet natural
gas is not available.
Generally a stripping process can
be carried oui more efficiently at
vacuum pressures, however, operation
in a vacuum requires special equipment
and more safety and design considera-
tions. It is possible to accomplish
the same result at law pOBitive pres-
sures (Z-5 psig) either with a warm
heated feed or by a tower bottoms re-
boiler. A new approach is introduced
with the inert gas stripping method
which will add heat to the bottoms by
utilizing some of the heat of combus-
tion of the stripping gas. Additional
heat may be required if it is desired
to reduce the vapor pressure to an even
lower level.
SWEET GAS STRIPPING
Figure 1 is a flow diagram of a
unit which was designed to reduce the
HZS content of 30° API sour crude from
an inlet composition of 300-500 ppm to
less than 30 ppm using sweet natural
gas for stripping. This is the
simplest method of stripping if sweet
gas is available from another pro-
ducing zone and it is desired to flare
the overhead gas product. Stabiliza-
tion of the crude occurs simultaneously
with the strip~ing process which pre-
vents weathering loss; and in some
cases actually increases the stock tank
volume over that which would be pos-
sible with stage separation only. In
this case the crude picks up the heavy
ends from the gas and gives up its
light ends to the gas for a volume
"swap-out".
Figure Z shows the effect of
stripping gas rate on the processed oil
at a constant temperature. It can be
seen that the amount of HZS decreases
with an increase in stripping gas rate,
however, when using a rich gas for
stripping the vapor pressure of the
crude is increased due to the crude
absorbing butanes and other light ends
from the gas.
Figure 3 shows the effect of feed
temperature on a column with a con-
stant but high rate of stripping gas.
The two variables of feed temperature
SPE Z599
and stripping gas rate can thus be
controlled to give the optimum
operating conditions for any particu-
lar crude. Column temperatures should
be held to the minimum required to
give the desired HZS content for the
amount of stripping gas available, in
order to realize the maximum volume of
stock tank oil. In actual practice the
tray efficiency was reported to be in
the order of 16.5 percent with respect
to HZS and required 4 theoretical trays
to reduce the HZS content to the de-
sired leve1. 1 A unit recently in-
stalled in the Middle East will process
95,000 Bb1/D of sour crude using about
1 MMCF/D of sweet gas and inlet heat
necessary to reduce HZS content below
30 ppm and vapor pressure below 14.7
psia @100oF. This is a GOR of 10.5
CF/Bb1, which is considerably lower
than what would be required without
heat. Design calculations are based on
the Chao-Seader method Z of predicting
vapor-liquid equilibria in hydrocarbon
systems and were performed using an
iterative type computer program.
OTHER PROCESSES
If sweet gas is not available,
it is quite possible to carry out the
sweetening process with the sour solu-
tion gas by recycling the stripping gaB
through an amine unit. This process
is depicted in Figure 4 and is similar
to the sweet gas process except for the
added amine unit. Variations in each
of these processes can be made to fit
the particular application. Sulfur
recovery can be added to large units
where an economic incentive warrants
such an operation.
Figure 5 shows a process whereby
a sour crude can be processed when
very little gas is available at the
production satellite. The gas can be
used for fuel in the inert gas process
and expanded by combustion to ap-
proximately 10 times its original vol-
ume. The process is inherently safe
since combustion is' necessary for the
flow of gas to occur. Heat from com-
bustion can be used to heat the tower
bottoms instead of using a reboiler or
heated feed. This process has been
very successful in the removal of HZS
from injection water 3 . In this regard
another process has been used which is
quite similar except that it uses a
submerged combustion burner 4 . The
latter process would need to be equipped
SPE 2599 GEORGE W.
with extra safety equipment in order
to prevent a combustible mixture in
the contact tower.
CONCLUSIONS
The cycling of a stripping gas in
a contact tower can be used to ef-
fectively reduce the hydrogen sulfide
content of crude oil to a desired
level. Concurrently with the stripping
operation the crude oil can be stabi-
lized to a desired vapor pressure for
transporting or storing in a warm
climate at atmospheric pressure.
The sweetening process can be ac-
complished by several different pro-
cesses using either gas that is avail-
able at the site or inert gas which is
generated by combustion. ,Sulfur re-
covery may be economically attractive
in the larger installations which have
a large enough volume of combustible
regene~ated effluent.
Fig. 1
CLANTON 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to express their
appreciation to Rhodes Technology
Corporation for permission to publish
this paper.
REFERENCES
L Shipster, T.R.: "Partial Removal
of HZS From Crude Oil By Stripping
With Natural Gas", IP Review
(December, 1965) 393
Z. Chao, K.C., and Seader, J.D.,
!.!.Ch ~ ~. I, (1961) 598
3. Frank, Wallace J., "Engine Ex-
haust Economically Sweetens
Injection Water", World Oil,
(March,1969) 79
4. Weeter, R.F.: "Exhaust Gases
Strip HZS From Sour Flood Water",
Pet. Eng. (May, 1963) 51-58