NGL and condensate handling, calculations, and breakeven analysis

Abstract Natural gas processing entails separating all the liquid hydrocarbon and water from natural gas to produce a pipeline quality dry natural gas. Natural gas liquids (NGL) obtained after processing and fractionation associated with rich BTU areas have a variety of uses such as petrochemical plants and feedstock, providing raw materials for oil refineries, and enhanced oil recovery (tertiary recovery) in oil wells. Transportation regulations typically impose limitations on the natural gas make up before allowing natural gas transportation through pipelines. These limitations include outlet BTU and Wobbe Index (WI). WI is very often used as a parameter to determine the upper and lower bounds of gas composition specified in gas sales and contracts. Each gas market has been historically isolated from other regions and each market has its own gas quality specifications. Therefore, each transportation company has its own tariff (set of requirements). Typically, 1100 BTU/SCF and 1400 WI are the requirements to meet the pipeline quality specifications. Some pipelines and contracts allow higher gas BTUs of up to 1150 BTU/SCF but 1100 BTU is usually the case for many pipelines and contracts.