Patent ID: 6984257

Claim:
A method of dehydrating natural gas, the method comprising the steps of: providing an absorber for receiving the natural gas; linking the absorber to a still column; transferring wet glycol from the absorber to the still column; linking a reboiler to the absorber; transferring dry glycol from the reboiler to the absorber to dehydrate the natural gas; linking a glycol-to-glycol heat exchanger to and between the reboiler and the absorber; linking at least one separator to the still column to receive effluent and remove liquid hydrocarbons and water from the effluent for collection and removal of gaseous hydrocarbons from the effluent; linking at least one vacuum generating component to the at least one separator to receive gaseous hydrocarbons from the separator; linking at least one emissions separator to the at least one vacuum generating component to receive the wet glycol from the at least one vacuum generating component and from the absorber and to transfer gaseous hydrocarbons to a firing system of the reboiler; and not releasing gaseous hydrocarbons to the atmosphere.