Simulation and optimization of natural gas processing plant

Natural gas (NG) is naturally generated gas mixture lying under the earth and collected from gas well directly. Natural gas emits little amount of pollutant when it burns and is buried around the world widely. Because of these properties, NG is receiving attention as low-carbon, eco-friendly alternative fuels. It is the major energy source of our country for both domestic and industrial operations. Natural Gas processing plant converts gas reservoir’s raw natural gases to produce sales gas, which is highly demanded commodity in the market. Sales gas specification typically required processed gas with small amount of water to avoid pipelines corrosion, avoid hydrates formation in the gas and for their immediate industry consumption. The plant is equips with gas dehydration system facilities to absorb water from raw gas and most of the gas dehydration processes are using tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) process unit. This article presents a generalized methodology of a natural gas process plant simulation and optimization taking a typical gas process plant in Bangladesh as an example. In this study, a steady-state simulation of the process plant was performed using Aspen HYSYS. The work aims in achieving two main objectives, which are carrying out plant simulation model using Aspen HYSYS software and reasonable optimizing of gas dehydration system.