Monitoring liquification and regasification of liquified natural gas (LNG)

Demand for natural gas is on the rise, distribution across the globe is a challenge that cannot always be overcome with pipelines, liquifying the gas is often the best solution as this process creates an almost 600-fold reduction in volume, enabling transportation by ship or truck. There are several steps for changing natural gas to liquid – and back to gas again, BARTEC provide reliable and precise instrumentation to help on each step of the way.

Gas metering is the first stage of the process – and analysing its quality to ensure that the contracted limits of impurities are not exceeded can be reliably carried out by the BARTEC BENKE HYGROPHIL F and HYGROPHIL HCDT; these highly reliable analysers will accurately determine water content and the hydrocarbon condensation point of the gas.

Natural gas condensate, made up from long-chained hydrocarbons, is expelled to give the gas a high level of methane. The condensate is then collected and stabilised so it can be processed further or sold on. BARTEC’s BENKE RVP-4 Reid Vapour Pressure analyser monitors this process according to ASTM D5191. This facilitates control of the condensate stabilisation process whilst maximising the yield of condensate. BARTEC BENKE’s RVP-4 and the HYGROPHIL F ensure that the safety and quality needs of this part of the process are met.

The next stage is dehydration, this involves removing water vapour by utilising a few molecular sieve dehydration vessels. Precise moisture measurement is key to this part of the process; the gas is cooled to – 160 deg C/-260 deg F, so deploying a BARTEC BENKE HYGROPHIL F in a multi-channel configuration at the bed outlet, or mid-bed section, will ensure that any excess of moisture is discovered early.

Finally, there is quality and fiscal metering required for regasification. These plants use metering skids to monitor quality and carry our fiscal metering before the gas re-enters the pipeline.