Natural gas is the world’s fastest growing fossil fuel with global consumption expected to increase by 70%, from 4 trillion m3 in 2014 to 7 trillion by 2040. It also plays a vital role in economic recovery, future growth and for meeting Europe’s 2020 demanding emissions reduction targets. Efficient, responsible and effective use of natural gas resources is therefore essential for Europe. Raw natural gas varies in composition from source to source with methane (CH4) the major component (60-98%), followed by ethane, (C2H6), propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10). All natural gas also contains undesirable impurities and contaminants, including water, CO2, nitrogen and hydrogen sulphide (H2S). The problem is compounded by unconventional sources such as shale gas which have far greater compositional variance than conventional natural gas. Despite this variance, the composition of gas delivered to transmission pipelines has to be tightly controlled by the gas producers to meet stringent quality standards and specifications. Natural gas therefore has to be processed to remove these contaminants. This can be a complex, expensive and energy intensive process. With high financial penalties or the threat of closure for gas producers not meeting high quality standards, most natural gas is understandably highly over processed. However, this practice is time consuming, energy intensive and leads to high CO2 emissions. It is also ultimately expensive, (a cost of €91billion p.a. globally). This problem will only get worse as more shale gas is exploited in Europe and globally due to the large variability in shale gas pocket composition. Europe has 18.1 trillion m3 (est.) in shale gas reserves, with the US at 24.4 trillion m3 and ROW at 579.1 trillion m3. The key reason for this over processing is that producers lack precise knowledge about the dynamic quantity of contaminants present in the gas feedstock.
The objective of this innovation project is to bring to technological maturity and market readiness an innovative, cost effective, natural gas analyser with the potential to improve the energy efficiency of natural gas processing facilities by up to 20%. In so doing, we aim to save the EU gas processing industry €1.3 billion p.a. help Europe meet its demanding CO2 reduction targets and generate a market opportunity worth €51.4 million, creating 54 jobs.
