Review of the natural gas phases separation process at high pressure in the Oil&Gas industry

Abstract

The Physical separation of liquids and gases is one of the main operations of production, processing and treatment in the oil industry; it is necessary to prevent damage to rotating equipment, to avoid corrosion in pipes and to achieve with the natural gas quality specifications for domestic use. When the operating pressure increases, the density difference between the phases decreases, which makes the separation process difficult or in some cases impossible. In this work, the state of the art of the different methodologies  to separate the liquid and gaseous phases of natural gas is reviewed , as well as the design variables applied to systems that operate at high pressure from the 90’s to the present; with special emphasis on the advances found using Computational Fluid Dynamics. The results show that, although both centrifugal and supersonic separators are more compact and easy to maintain compared to gravitational separators, gravitational separators remain the most favorable strategy when combining high pressure and low liquid load (less than 4%vol), as is the case of natural gas. Conclusion awarded, in part, to the lack of experimental/numerical studies involving natural gas in alternative equipment to the gravitational separator.