SPE 69506

Shell Separation Technology From the Wellhead to the User

S.D. Bergerman, H.G. Polderman and J.L. Bravo, Shell Global Solutions International B.V.

Copyright 2001, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.

This paper summarizes the areas of applications of the
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Shell separations technologies in the main steps of the
Engineering Conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 25–28 March 2001.
hydrocarbon supply chain: the production of oil and gas, the
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
treatment and conditioning of gas, and the refining of oil.
presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at Separations in the Oil Platform
SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of
Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper Figure 1 shows a schematic of the flows in an oil production
for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is
prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300
platform. The stream from the well is a three-phase stream and
words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous the first step is to separate these phases into gas, hydrocarbon
acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O.
Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. liquid, and water.

Abstract
Advantaged separations technology has proven to be key in
the success of the hydrocarbon production processes of Shell
over the years. R&D as well as benchmarking efforts over the
years have yielded a varied slate of separation process
technology that has found wide application in the field. The
Shell separation technologies cover the range of phase
separation, distillation hardware, and process design and are
pervasive in the hydrocarbon supply chain from production
to manufacturing.

Introduction Fig. 1: Separation flowscheme of an oil platform

Separations technology plays a pivotal role in the supply of
hydrocarbons from the production sites to the market. It is
estimated that separations equipment constitutes close to 30%
of the capital invested in oil and gas platforms, 60% of the
capital invested in LNG fractionation and gas conditioning,
and 50% of the capital invested in oil refineries. Furthermore,
separations equipment consume a very significant portion of
the energy used in the production, manufacture, and delivery
of hydrocarbons to market.
The prevalence of separations needs in the industry makes
the applicable technologies very important in the profitability
and operability of the production and manufacturing assets.
This importance has long been recognized by Shell and
significant R&D effort has been applied over the years to the
development of advantageous separations technology that
offers improvements in capacity, efficiency, and reliability
over those offered in the open market. The purpose of this
effort has been to give the Shell operating companies
competitive advantages and most recently, to offer them
commercially to other parties as well.
The Gas/Liquid/Liquid separator is the first piece of
equipment on the platform and its capacity and reliability is
key to the economics of the platform. Shell has developed
specialized know-how in the design of these separators that
produces high quality separation in minimal space. Typical
components of these separators include the Shell
Schoepentoeter™ inlet device followed by a succession of
distribution devices, a dedicated cross flow plate pack and
demisting cyclones as illustrated in Figure 2. The main issues
here are to ensure that the gas carries over minimum liquid,
the water carries out minimum hydrocarbon, and that the
hydrocarbon is suitably de-gassed and dry. The handling of the
gas/liquid and liquid/liquid interfaces requires specialized
know-how [1].
2 S.D. BERGERMAN, H.G. POLDERMAN AND J.L. BRAVO
Fig. 2: Details of an optimised three-phase separator
The stabilizer shown in Figure 1 is a special feature which
is particularly interesting for processing light crudes. It is a
distillation column which allows a sharper split between liquid
and gas with the benefits of reduced compression power
consumption in combination with an increased liquid yield and
a better control of the crude vapor pressure which reduces
vapor losses during further handling [2]. Compact design is
achieved using Shell developed HiFi™ distillation trays.
These trays will be described in detail later in the paper.
It can be clearly seen that the capacity, reliability, and
efficiency of the separators and the stabilizer play a
fundamental role in the capital and operating cost of the
platform and hence on its profitability.
Separations in the Gas Platform
Figure 3 depicts the operation of a gas platform that takes a
gas stream from the wells, separates the hydrocarbon liquids
associated with that stream and then processes the gas to
remove water for corrosion and hydrate formation control
during transmission.
Fig. 3: Separation flowscheme of a gas platform
The first separator in the process, also known as the
scrubber, plays a very important role in the process. Its
function is to separate hydrocarbon liquids from gas under
high pressure conditions with high efficiency, since any
hydrocarbon carryover presents significant operational
problems downstream. Shell has developed the SMSM™
separator technology for this purpose and it has become a very
successful application in many installations all over the world.
The SMSM™ separators are the most compact devices
SPE 69506
available for this service. The heart of the technology is the
use of centrifugal forces generated by Swirl Tubes™ to
separate gas from liquids with minimal shear. Figure 4 shows
a diagram of an SMSM™ separator and it indicates the
maximum gas load that can be handled in it. This maximum
load is as much as 100% higher than that available from
conventional mist elimination equipment such as vane-packs
and mist mats while the separation efficiencies are equivalent:
in combination with optimised mistmats 99.5% separation
efficiency can be obtained.
Fig. 4: Details of a SMSM™ separator
The next step in the process is to dehydrate the gas. The
best process available for this is the removal of water by
absorption into a hygroscopic solvent such as
triethyleneglycol. This operation requires very intimate
contact between the solvent and the gas so that very low gas
dew points (water content) are achieved. It also requires very
efficient separation of the glycol and the gas so the gas leaving
the contactor can be handled properly in the pipeline. In this
case the Swirl Tube™ concept is used in dual function since,
as described above, it allows for efficient separation, but it
also promotes excellent contact between the phases while in
the tubes. The advantages of this technology are clearly
illustrated in Figure 5 where, as indicated, the capacity of the
Shell Swirl Tube™ tray outperforms state of the art
technology such as structured packings by 40-50%.
Fig. 5: Separation efficiency of SMSM™ separators
A condensate stripping column ensures that the condensate
obtained from the platform is essentially water free which is
important when the condensate is recombined with the dry gas
SPE 69506 SHELL SEPARATIONS TECHNOLOGY FROM THE WELLHEAD TO THE USER 3

for transport tho shore. Also this stripping operation can minimum capital is the key and the Shell HiFi™, Calming
effectively use the high capacity of the Shell HiFi™ Section™, and ConSep™ tray technologies have become the
contacting trays. best tool to achieve the required performance. Figure 7 shows
where these different trays can be used. Figure 8 shows the
Gas Sweetening capacity advantages of the Shell family of tray technology
The removal of acid gases (H2S, CO2 mainly) from gas over conventional technology.
streams is a prevalent operation in gas processing. It can be
found in many places in the supply chain, involving produced
gas, gas separated from liquids, and even gas obtained in the
refining process. In all these cases the objective is to remove
one of more of the acid gas components from the gas, usually
by an absorptive process that uses a solvent. The selection of
the proper solvent formulation for the application is a very
important step in proper and economical process design.
Shell has developed entire proprietary processes such as
the Sulfinol and SCOT processes for selective absorption of
H2S or CO2. The general flowsheet of these processes is
shown in Figure 6 and it basically consists of an absorption
tower and a solvent recovery stripper. The proprietary Shell Fig. 7: Typical NGL fractionation plant
solvents in these processes are also combined with the use of
the Shell HiFi™ tray technology for maximum capacity and
efficiency. Some of these solvent formulations actually
perform absorption with the aid of a chemical reaction. This
means that liquid residence time in the contacting towers is a
variable to be manipulated and designed for. The Shell HiFi™
tray technology allows designers to tune residence time
requirements for proper selectivity and total absorption
performance.

Fig. 8: Capacity of Shell column internals

The high capacity characteristics of the Shell tray

technology make it best suited for revamp and debottlenecking
applications where conventional tray technology can be
replaced and expand plant capacity without having to invest in
additional towers.

Oil Refining
Fig. 6: General flowsheet of gas treating processes The manufacturing of fuels and chemical feedstocks from
crude oil in a refinery takes place by a combination of
separation (mainly distillation) and conversion processes. The
NGL Fractionation
latter are used to upgrade fractions into more valuable
The separation of NGL components for use by the
products while the former is used to purify products or prepare
petrochemical industry is the first true manufacturing process
feedstocks. The Shell separation technologies applicable to
in the supply chain. In these so-called Fractionation plants the
refining are a combination of process know-how and superior
NGL is separated into marketable products such as ethane,
hardware for distillation. Figure 9 indicates where various
propane, butane, isobutane, and gasoline. These separations all
pieces of this array fit in a general refinery flowsheet,
take place by high pressure distillation and are shown
including all kind of distillation processes (primary
schematically in Figure 7. The profitability of these plants is
distillation, distillation section of conversion units, light ends
dictated by Capex minimization, separation efficiency and
separation, etc.), as well as other specific separation
capacity, and also by energy integration. A fundamental
applications (like aromatics recovery by solvent extraction).
component in these factors is the performance of the
distillation columns. Maximum capacity and efficiency with
4 S.D. BERGERMAN, H.G. POLDERMAN AND J.L. BRAVO SPE 69506

Fig. 9: Schematic oil refinery configuration

Figure 10 illustrates the Shell Deepflash Vacuum

Distillation technology, where the advantages of a large design
history and experience database are incorporated. The
combination of ultra low pressure drop internals and dry
operation (no stripping steam injection) allows to reach flash
zone pressures as low as 22 mbara, maximizing the vacuum
distillate yield. On the other hand, Shell’s extensive
operational experience is translated into operational guidelines
intended to maintain consistent product quality and yields over
the whole unit runlength.

Fig. 10: Shell DeepFlash High Vacuum Unit

Once again, like in the case of LNG fractionation, the role

of the high capacity Shell distillation tray technology is an
important component of efficient and profitable
refinery operation.

References
1. H.G. Polderman et al. ‘New design rules for dehydration tanks
and separator vessels’ Paper SPE 38816, Presented at the SPE
Annual Meeting, San Antonio October 1997.
2. K.J. Li, ‘Use of fractionation column in an offshore
environment’, Paper SPE 49121, prepared for the SPE Annual
Meeting, New Orleans, September 1998.