Shell Jumping Pound: Optimizing Sulphur Plant Operations Via Linde Cllaus Oxygen Enrichment Process
Authors: Dreisinger Doug , Moffat Tom 
Published: March 2010

Shell Canada, in conjunction with the Linde Division of Union Carbide recently commissioned a commercial Claus oxygen enrichment system at Shell's Jumping Pound Gas Processing complex located 35 km west of Calgary. Commissioning of this commercial system followed Shell's successful Claus oxygen enrichment demonstration program which was conducted m June 1987 with Linde.

Prior to oxygen enrichment, several seasonal problems plagued Shell's normal sulphur plant operations at the Jumping Pound Complex. These problems included insufficient air blower capacity, excessively high tail gas flows and, to a lesser extent, undesirably low reaction furnace temperatures due to low H2S content in the acid gas feed. With oxygen enrichment, which has been commercially utilized at Jumping Pound since late 1987, it has been apparent/that all effects of oxygen enrichment upon the operation of the sulphur plant have been positive. Most notably, an instantaneous sulphur plant capacity increase of up to 60 tpd may be achieved with Claus oxygen enrichment at Jumping Pound No.5 sulphur plant.

The test program objectives and results, as well as enrichment facilities design and operation for both the test program and commercial program are summarized in this paper.

Introduction

Shell Canada Limited's Jumping Pound Gas Plant is a sour natural gas processing facility located approximately 35 km west of Calgary, Alberta. It processes up to 7686 E3m3/day of raw gas from four fields ranging in H2S content from 3 to 9 mole per cent, with average H2S content of 6% to 7%. This feedstock produces approximately 6000 E3m3/day sales gas, 600 tpd recovered sulphur product, plus associated liquid products.

Three parallel three-bed Claus sulphur plants process the acid gas coming off the sulphinol treating units. Conversion efficiency from these three plants consistently exceeds the 96.2% minimum required sulphur recovery efficiency.

Prior to late 1987, sulphur plant capacity was the limiting factor in over-all plant throughput. High tail gas backpressure limited the amount of air that could be supplied to the reaction furnaces by the air blowers and sulphur rundown seal pots on the condensers were often on the verge of blowing. Consequently, the sulphur plants were frequently limited to 580 tpd of sulphur, short of the full licensed sulphur intake limit or 619 tpd, and gas sales were restricted accordingly. This situation existed for five months or the year during peak demand, and was particularly evident during warmer days when air density was low.

In studying suitable alternatives for debottlenecking the sulphur plants to gain additional sulphur capacity of 40 tpd, Shell's Engineering group at Jumping Pound was raced with two options:Conventional Debottlenecking - The method or debottlenecking the sulphur plants would be to increase the air blower outputs and deepen the hydraulic legs on the rundown seal pots in all three plants. Alternatively, the incinerator burner (comon to all three plants) could be modified to lower the tail gas backpressure, however, this would require a costly total plant shutdown which Shell had not budgeted for until July 1988.