SOGAT 2014: The power of sour

The past year has seen a number of high profile developments in the Middle East region. The UAE announced that its Shah Gas field is due to come online in Q1 of 2015, Saudi Aramco unveiled its enormous new 28 million cubic metres per day gas plant at the Al Fadhili field, and RasGas have invested $10.3 billion in the development of the Barzan Fields in Qatar.

These and a host of other issues will provide plenty of talking points at the forthcoming Sour Oil and Gas Advanced Technology (Sogat) conference.

This month the 10th annual Sogat conference will be held at Abu Dhabi’s Beach Rotana Hotel, from the 23rd to the 27th March 2014.

Sogat 2014 will feature papers and presentations by industry experts on subjects such as acid gas removal, new Sulphur Recovery Unit control techniques and carbon capture concepts. The latter being particularly pertinent following the recent agreement between Madsar and Adnoc in order to develop CO2 usage in EOR processes.

There will also be a full programme of workshops to attend on the 23rd and 24th March. Highlights include ‘Amine Treating’; ‘Sulphur Plant Operations and Lessons Learned’; ‘Sour Oil and Gas Optimisation’; and ‘Filtration and Separation’.

Sogat 2014 will also include an exhibition space with over 30 companies exhibiting. Some of the industries more experienced companies will be in attendance as well as a range of companies who will be exhibiting for the first time.

“One of the things I’m looking forward to most about Sogat 2014 is the opportunity to welcome a host of innovative new exhibitors from places as far afield as China, America and the UK,” said event organiser, Dr Nick Coles.

“Our team members from Abu Dhabi are really looking forward to attending Sogat this year. An event like Sogat gives companies the opportunity to listen and share learnings with people who have common interests. We believe it is important to know what is keeping them up at night, what they see ahead and identify any trends in the industry,” said Mike Gilbert, vice president for Middle East and Asia at United Safety.

The Sogat 2014 conference will close with a key note address, gala dinner and an award for the best paper given at this year’s conference.

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Breathing apparatus for hairy situations
Camlock’s FAST-Cowl breathing apparatus offers Bearded Men life saving protection in the event of an H2s Leak

Camlock will be exhibiting the world’s first hazardous breathing apparatus which are suitable for more hirsute gentleman, at their Sogat 2014 exhibition stand.

Traditional breathing apparatus products are prone to malfunction if the person using the mask has a beard. This is because the masks rely on an air tight seal between mask and face in order to operate, which is harder to achieve with a beard.

Camlock have developed a range of breathing apparatus which solve this problem by adding a cowl to the mask. The mask had its origin in the London Fire Service but was quickly deployed across the oil & gas sector.

“The London Fire Service had shown keen interest in the FAST-cowl face mask to provide a solution that would allow ethnic minorities [in the main, Sikhs] to be operational fire fighters. It was evident from the excellent protection factor performance results achieved that Camlock’s FAST-Cowl face mask system could protect wearers both clean shaven and those with facial hair,” said John Swatton, business development director at Camlock.

Breathing apparatus such as these could be the difference between life and death for workers at sour gas and oil plants across the Middle East. Camlock’s FAST-Cowl mask has made the transition from London and is now firmly embedded across the Middle East.

“Our masks are used at PDO Oman in the southern desert, on the Harweel EOR project as well as the Birba and Marmul sites,” he said.

“Risk assessment studies demonstrated that in such an incident, personnel would only have 75 seconds to put on their face masks, yet all of the masks at these facilities took an average of one to two minutes to deploy.

Industrial sectors like oil & gas do not use these masks on a daily basis. In the case of a genuine emergency mistakes can be made. With this type of breathing apparatus such problems are eliminated as, once deployed, the head harness automatically expands to fit the wearer,” he said.

As well as exhibiting their FAST-cowl technology, Camlock will be using Sogat 2014 to highlight a key safety issue in the sour gas industry. John Swatton will be giving a speech entitled ‘Emergency Response in High Pressure H2S situations: Ensuring the Correct Selection of Emergency Escape Breathing Apparatus (EEBA)’.

“It gives me the chance to present data on this important element of operational safety. It’s an area which has been taken too lightly in the procurement of EEBA units, with technical specifications falling short of the standard required in these new sour gas projects,” he said.

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Sweet and sour: Amine management
The consequences of neglecting proper Amine management can be severe

Due to the increasingly sour nature of gas in the Middle East, there is a growing focus on technologies aimed at sweetening it.

Dow will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Designing for Low Partial Pressure Acid Gas Removal’. The paper will focus on the consequences of failing to properly address the issue of treating low partial pressure acid gas with amines.

Dow’s commercial director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adriano Gentilucci believes that the Middle East region presents some unique challenges in this regard.

“Given that the Middle East has some of the world’s largest sour oil & gas reserves, we further anticipate continued high sulphur content in the oil and natural gas coming out of the ground, as well as tightening environmental regulations to reduce the amount of sulphur emitted to the environment. The sulphur has to be extracted to lower and lower levels which is increasingly difficult for companies,” he said.

In addition to presenting a paper, the company will be exhibiting user solutions for sweetening sour gas.

“We will be showcasing our Amine Management Programme, a comprehensive gas sweetening service programme which optimises the users total system costs. The service program uses Dow’s proprietary simulation software,” he said.

“This year Dow will also be exhibiting its UCARSEP Heat Stable Salt Remediation Process, a solvent purification system. It removes contaminants from the system while it is still running to improve the amine solution’s performance, crucially avoiding costly shutdown time,” he said.

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Sweet talk: DuPont on sour gas
The coming year will see a steep rise in the demand for sour gas treatment technology products

DuPont’s EMEA business leader, Yves Herssens, believes that 2014 will be a busy year for the sour gas treatment industry.

“More sour gas is being brought to refineries and gas processing plants, increasing the demand for treatment technologies. Changing product and environmental standards are also driving more investment into sour gas treatment technologies,” he said.

Herssens also believes that 2014 will offer the opportunity to refine safety practices in the industry.

“In the face of the ever-increasing global industrialisation, DuPont continues to improve upon its materials and the standards that help keep all of us safe in the toughest of conditions”, he said.

DuPont will be presenting a paper at this year’s Sogat entitled ‘A Few Sweet Tricks for Sour Gas’. The paper will look at the key factors influencing technological selection in the industry, such as safe disposal of sulphur products, acid gas removal efficiency and technological limitations.

Growing populations, mounting pressures, rising hostilities, inhospitable surroundings; these are the harsh realities of living in the world today. That’s why DuPont takes safety and protection so seriously.

We innovate and collaborate with companies, governments, industrial manufacturers, and academics to develop and test a wide range of materials,” he said.

DuPont will be exhibiting their range of technologies aimed at the efficient treatment of acid gas streams.

“DuPont and its subsidiary MECS Incorporated offer unique process and equipment technology solutions for the treatment of acid gas streams generated in the Sour Gas industry.

These technologies include supplementing existing treatment processes by increasing capacity and reliability, producing easily disposed or more valuable end-products, and providing ongoing technical and operational support of those processes.

In addition, our cost-effective technologies allow us to achieve ultra-low emissions even during upset conditions, on behalf of our clients” he said.