Chemical & Process Technology: Comparison for LNG Production Processess

Monday, June 22, 2009

Comparison for LNG Production Processess

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Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is one of the cleanest energy among all other energy sources.LNG and Supply Chain discussed briefly entire production, transportation, receiving and distribution path of LNG. There are still many peoples who are safety, environment & security concerns, not agreeing with the LNG production as discussed in "LNG SES Issues...".

Liquefy Natural gas is a process of cooling down the natural gas to form liquid for easy storage and transportation. There are few ways to cool down natural gas. Typically are mechanical refrigeration, JT valve and expansion turbine. More discussion in "Techniques to Achieve Cryogenic Temperature". Nowadays, liquefying LNG processes generally adopting combination of two or three techniques as discussed above. Following is a tabulation of a few well-known LNG processes.

Process	C3MR	Cascade	SMR	DMR	MFC	N2 Exp
Thermal Eff.	High	High	Med.	High	High	Low
Equip. no	Med.	High	Low	Med.	Med.	Med.
Precooling HX	Kettle	Core-in -Kettle	Plate-fin	Spiral Wound	Plate-fin	Kettle
Liq. HX	Spiral Wound	Core-in -Kettle Plate-fin	Plate-fin	Spiral Wound	Spiral Wound	Plate-fin
Refrig. Storage	Large	Large	Med.	Med.	Med.	None
CAPEX	Med.	Med.	Low	Med.	Med.	High