Diseño de una planta para la producción de metanol a partir de gas natural asociado proveniente de un campo petrolero.

Abstract

The objective of this project was to design a plant to obtain methanol from associated natural gas from the Sacha field and thus reduce imports of this resource. The process for obtaining methanol consisted of 4 stages: pre-treatment, reforming, methanol synthesis and purification. In the pre-treatment stage, 15,059 MPCSD (thousands of standard cubic feet per day) entered a chemical absorption of acid gases in diethanolamine to sweeten natural gas; in the reforming stage, the sweet gas was converted into syngas by means of steam reforming (SMR) which gives rise to strongly endothermic reactions; in the synthesis stage, the desired product was obtained in a multitubular reactor with a catalyst of CuO/ZnO/Al2O3; and in purification, methanol was separated from unreacted synthesis gas in a distillation tower to have a production of 24 330.75 kg/h. The mass and energy balance for the pre-treatment zone was performed using the Aspen HYSYS Software, With the results of the balances, their dimensioning was carried out and the diagrams were elaborated: BFD, PFD, P&ID and the plant distribution of the equipment. From the economic pre-feasibility analysis, a VAN of 576,562,966.27 USD and TIRof 66% were obtained, the project was determined to be economically feasible.