Gas stripping process for removal of sulfur-containing components from crude oil
AssigneeConocoPhillips Company
InventorJon M. Mock
Life of this patent
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Abstract
High rate gas stripping for removal of sulfur-containing components such as mercaptans from crude oil may be conducted by feeding sweet gas to the bottom of a tower containing pre-heated mercaptan-containing crude oil feed. The gas bubbles up through the crude becoming enriched with H2S, mercaptans, CO2 and/or hydrocarbons. The rich gas exits the tower, and is treated to produce a sweetened gas, a portion of which is recycled to the tower, and an acid gas. The remainder of the sweetened and/or the acid gas may be used as a fuel or processed to recover a portion of any hydrocarbons that may have been stripped out of the crude oil with the mercaptans, sulfur-containing components, CO2, used for enhanced oil recovery or disposed.
Claims17
A method for reducing sulfur containing compounds and specifically the mercaptan content of a mercaptan containing crude oil stream where the method for reducing the mercaptan content of the crude oil stream consisting essentially of stripping the mercaptan containing crude oil stream with a gas stream having a relatively reduced level of mercaptans to produce a gas stream containing an increased level of mercaptans and a crude oil stream containing a reduced level of mercaptans in a non-reactive system, and wherein the method involves an absence of hydrogenation as a means of removing sulfur containing compounds from the crude oil stream.
A method for reducing the sulfur containing compounds and specifically the mercaptan content of a mercaptan containing crude oil stream where the method for reducing the mercaptan content of the crude oil stream consists essentially of stripping the mercaptan containing crude oil stream with a gas stream having a relatively reduced level of mercaptans to produce a gas stream containing an increased level of mercaptans and a crude oil stream containing a reduced level of mercaptans in a non-reactive system, and wherein the method involves an absence of hydrogenation as a means of removing sulfur containing compounds from the crude oil stream, wherein the gas stream strips methyl mercaptan, ethyl mercaptan and mixtures thereof from the crude oil stream, and wherein the gas stream strips the mercaptans from the mercaptan containing crude oil stream at a high rate where the high rate is between about 0.1 to about 1.0 MSCF per barrel of crude oil (about 18 to about 180 m3 gas/m3).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.