Paper: Problems Associated With Chemical Dehydration Of Naturally Produced CO2

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR), by gas flood, has been a successful practice since the 1930's. One of the more recent gases to be used in these operations has been C02. Large natural CO2 production from fields in New Mexico, Wyoming, Mississippi, and Colorado have begun to supply EOR projects. Naturally produced CO2 gas undergoes three major process steps before being transported, via pipeline, to the end users: production, purification, and compression. The purification step is performed to remove other gas and liquid contaminants from the C02. Although other methods have been considered, dehydration by glycol absorption has been most widely employed. Early in 1984 an invitation was issued, by a major producer of CO2 gas, to test the efficiency of different separation equipment on problems associated with the purification of naturally produced CO2 and process by-products. This article presents the results of one series of tests which includes: liquid gas separation pre and post contactor, produced water purification, and unexpected hydrocarbon in glycol entrainment.