Economic optimization of natural gas processing plants including business aspects

A new method to determine the optimum performance of gas processing facilities including business aspects has been developed. The new technique incorporates all contractual terms, product prices, and process information to calculate the optimum set of operating conditions for the plant offline. The new methodology is based upon tailored rigorous simulations of a gas plant over a wide variation of operating conditions. Selected information is used from the rigorous simulation to form a process model to relate key process variables to plant output responses. The economic model incorporates economic parameters directly in a manner similar to the equation-based procedure. The outcome is a methodology to relate simultaneously process and economic information for economic optimization.; The new methodology is applied to three types of gas plants to demonstrate its ability to handle a wide variety of processes and economic conditions. The first example analyzes the economic conditions for a simple refrigeration plant to investigate the economic trade-off between inlet compression and refrigeration. The second example applies the methodology to a Joule-Thompson plant to introduce the concept of multiple inlet gas ownership and ethane rejection. The third example presents a turboexpander plant with a refluxed demethanizer to demonstrate the simplicity of the methodology with one of the most complex yet highest efficiency gas plant designs.; In each case, the underlying economics have been investigated to determine the set of business economic operating conditions for the plant. The application of this new methodology is a valuable tool to help find them.