As the energy mix shifts towards cleaner fuels, natural gas continues to grow in importance. But mercury present in natural gas threatens plant integrity, workers’ health, and the environment.
The metallurgical properties of mercury undermine the structural integrity of processing plants.
If mercury isn’t removed to sufficiently low levels ongoing exposure to aluminium components, leads to embrittlement, cracking, accelerated degradation, and subsequently catastrophic equipment failure.
These damages can lead to significant plant damage, loss of human life as well as economic losses due to interruptions in gas supply.
Therefore, it is crucial to implement preventive measures to mitigate these risks and ensure the safety and reliability of natural gas production infrastructure.
This makes accurate mercury monitoring essential.
Reducing this risk
Processing plants can remove mercury containments during gas treatment. This is usually done by installing mercury removal units (MRUs) as in-line filtration systems. However, this isn’t enough. Plants also need reassurance that these systems are working effectively. Monitoring mercury levels both upstream, midstream and downstream of the MRUs provide real-time insights. This gives operators full control and maximizing mercury removal.
Maintaining sample integrity throughout the measurement process is complex. This is because samples are taken from a high-pressure gas pipeline, passed through several conditioning stages, and then analyzed at ambient pressure. To add additional burden to the complexity of designing an effective monitoring solution, the complete system must also be certified for use in a hazardous area.
An end-to-end solution
Meeting this challenge requires more than conventional monitoring systems. Users need a turnkey solution designed specifically for the application. Building on the expertise of our team members formerly of Mercury Instruments in Germany and our system integration team in the UK, we can deliver precisely this.
Expertise in action: Jafurah project
Our experience has recently been applied to the Jafurah processing project in Saudi Arabia. This is one of the largest liquid-rich shale gas developments in the Middle East, with 200 trillion standard cubic feet of recoverable gas.
In this project, we’re supplying 12 complete systems to ensure safe and reliable mercury monitoring. This includes several high-performance, ultra-low-level UT-3000 trace mercury analyzers, combined with custom-designed sampling and conditioning systems. Together, these deliver repeatable, precise measurements despite the intricacy of the monitoring environment.
Safeguarding natural gas processing
ENVEA offers innovative mercury monitoring solutions for natural gas processing and a wide range of other applications. Discover our mercury monitoring solution that we are supplying to the Jafurah natural gas plant. To learn more about how our solutions can support your operations, contact our team today.
