Shell's Canadian Sulphur Experience
Authors: Marks Larry , Martin Michael R. 
Published: February 2016

Canada has for many years been one of the world's largest producers of by-product sulphur due to its extensive sour oil and gas operations. As such, much attention has been placed on proper sulphur management to ensure continued operation of these sour fields. It is anticipated that many more sour oil and gas fields will be developed during the next decade worldwide. This, coupled with ever increasing regulations to remove more sulphur from fuels, is expected to increase the worldwide supply of sulphur. Shell Canada is at the forefront of developing new sulphur related technologies intended to increase the economic use of much of these sulphur volumes. These technologies include sulphur asphalt, sulphur enhanced fertilizer and sulphur concrete. Appropriate management of elemental sulphur by the oil and gas producers will be a key element to continued successful development of sour fields. Many of the sulphur challenges faced in Canada over the past 50 years are the same that will be faced by many others in the future. The methods by which Canada has faced these challenges and successfully managed them have been of interest to many oil and gas producers worldwide and particularly in the Middle East.

This paper will discuss the various sulphur management options developed by Shell in Canada and present several recent applications in ME, Asia and North America.

Section 1 - Title Page

Today's oil and gas industry is under tremendous pressure to continue satisfying the world's growing energy needs. As most sweet (low acid gas) resources are developed, the primary reserve replacement potential is increasingly sour in nature. Coming at the same time as increasingly cleaner fuel specifications in which desulphurization is the primary process technology, it is clear that management of sulphur will be an important differentiator in oil and gas development.

Shell in Canada has experience in successfully dealing with sour oil and gas for over sixty years. The purpose of this presentation is to provide some background about Shell's sulphur experience in Canada and to share some of our plans for managing Shell's sulphur production in the future. The methods Shell employed in Canada met the challenges of safely extracting sour hydrocarbons and efficiently managed these operations and the resulting sulphur production.

Section 2 - Agenda

Highlights of Shell Canadian experience in sour field development Canada's historical and current methods of managing the sulphur business Sulphur marketing Shell's new global sulphur organization New sulphur initiatives Conclusion

Section 3 - Highlights of Shell Canadian Experience in Sour Field Development

All of Shell's Canadian sour gas fields lie in the Foothills disturbed belt, in front of the Rocky Mountain over thrust zone. Production is from Mississippian and Devonian carbonates. Shell started sour gas operations in 1951 in the Alberta foothills at the Jumping Pound field, containing gas with 5 - 10% H2S. It was the first gas plant in Canada to utilize amine sweetening technology and had a major impact on development of sour gas technologies - including the development of sour gas materials handling standards (NACE) and the use of the first wet sour gas pipelines.

Another Foothills field, Waterton, went on-stream in 1962 containing between 15 and 20% H2S and required further material handling innovations. Sour gas re-injection was utilized for condensate recovery and this field is still in major operation today.

Burnt Timber began operations in 1970 with an H2S content of up to 30%. It included the first super-Claus unit in Canada as well as a 49 kilometer wet sour gas pipeline.