Sour natural gas sparger

Abstract

An apparatus and method is provided for treating sour natural gas. The apparatus comprises a sparger for use in a high pressure and associated or non-associated sour natural gas environments. The sparger is used to disperse sour natural gas inside a sweeting tower/sulphide treatment vessel to facilitate an efficient transfer of hydrogen sulphide or carbon dioxide from the sour natural gas to a sweeting chemical inside the sulphide treatment vessel. A portion of the sparger exposed to the sulphide treatment environment is protected with a corrosion resistant layer/coating. The corrosion resistant layer protects the substrate metal of the sparger from corrosive environment of the sour natural gas inside or outside of the sparger. Corrosion resistant layer material may be selected so as to prevent the substrate metal from corrosion and suphide cracking.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.