The LNG industry continues to grow. Regulatory changes in China, for example, significantly increased the use of LNG and natural gas resources during the 2017 – 2018 winter months. As a result, new gas supplies from unconventional gas sources are increasing. Many of these unconventional sources contain higher amounts of nitrogen than more traditional gas streams. While nitrogen is an inert gas and constitutes the majority of the Earth’s atmosphere, it can cause problems such as low fuel heating value and flame lift at the burner tip if present in high concentrations in natural gas. LNG with a high nitrogen content can also have more of a propensity to ‘roll over’ while being stored, which produces high rates of evolved gas for a short period of time. To prevent such issues, most LNG products have a maximum nitrogen specification of 1%. When unconventional feed gas is used for an LNG facility, it may be necessary to incorporate a nitrogen rejection unit (NRU) into the facility to meet this specification.
Download
