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Description

Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) in your gas stream often needs to be removed to meet pipeline hydrocarbon dewpoint specifications. In other instances removal of LPG can be a significant source of revenue if the gas is rich in heavier hydrocarbons.

ALCO has been designing and building refrigeration plants for over 40 years and have built well over 200 units. These units range in size from 5.0 mmscfd (141.6 103m3/d) to over 150 mmscfd (4,247 103m3/d). They have been installed all over the world in arctic, tropical or desert conditions. ALCO can provide a custom designed unit or for a quick delivery we have a stock program for dewpoint control on leaner gas applications in the more common 5 mmscfd to 25 mmscfd sizes.

Most of our units are built using propane as a refrigerant to cool the gas and drop out the heavier hydrocarbons. Ethylene glycol is injected to achieve the required water dewpoint and prevent hydrates in the gas stream. The water rich glycol is regenerated to an 80% EG/water mix and re-injected.
Alternatives for removing LPG vary from the simple Joule Thompson (J.T.) or choke plant through to refrigeration plants and even more sophisticated packages like lean oil absorption or cryogenic turbo expander processes recovering in excess of 90% of the propane plus components.
We can design units to meet your sales gas requirements for hydrocarbon & water dewpoint, heating value, Wobbe index or others. The liquids recovered in these facilities can be treated in a stabilizer (12 psia RVP) C5+ product, a de-ethanizer (2% Vol C2/C3) C3+ product or fractionated further to produce C3, C4, (or C3/C4) andC5+ products.

ALCO designs custom units to meet a variety of operating conditions and as an example can incorporate the following depending on the Customer’s needs:

  • High efficiency inlet lube oil separators to remove lube oil carryover from upstream compression.
  • Fractionation towers with random packing or trays.
  • Glycol regenerator, tower reboilers using either a direct fired firetube, heat medium or an electric immersion heater.
  • Propane compression using electric or gas engine drives.
  • Full stainless steel units to dehydrate acid gas streams.
  • Still column emissions a problem? We can help.

Modular construction:

Refrigeration packages can be packaged to your requirements including:

  • Your instrumentation and valving requirements.
  • Individual Customer General Specifications.
  • Sales gas and liquid metering.
  • Single skid construction or multiple skids depending on your transportation limitations.
  • Building either installed at our facility or field erected.
  • Electrical work shop installed at ALCO.
  • Preparation for transit to international locations on either ’break bulk’ or ‘containerized’ (sizes permitting) basis.