Process Vision

Improving Foam Management in Gas Treatment

Liquid carryover in gas treatment causes foaming in amine and glycol contactors. Normal practice is to use de-foamer to recover from a foaming event. This often requires a reduction in gas flow rate until the foam is under control. Current practice is to monitor pressure drop across the contactor. Now, with LineVu reporting a carryover event before foaming starts, de-foamer can be added to prevent foam rather than recover from it, without loss of production.

Improving Condensate Recovery   

After gas treatment, it is important to recover as much of the premium condensate from the gas as possible. Processing liquids (usually glycol) can be carried over from gas treatment and freeze in the dew pointing equipment. This causes temperature control problems and can partially block the liquid removal process, and a combination of glycol and condensate are lost down the gas export line. When LineVu reveals liquid carryover from gas treatment, flows can be adjusted to find the optimum flow until the problem is diagnosed and repaired.

Flow Assurance

Using LineVu at custody transfer points improves accountability for pipeline contamination incidents. Gas is bought and sold at custody transfer points on a dry gas basis. LineVu is revealing glycol and compressor oil carryover that, up to now, passed on-line gas analysers without tripping an alarm. With the extra knowledge that the gas is wet, flow computers can be corrected, operators can make better decisions regarding the acceptability of gas, and pigging operations can be optimized.

The Camera Can in the LineVu system is mounted above a pipeline, normally behind a double block and bleed valve, thereby providing a “stand-off”, meaning that any contamination present in the gas flow does not foul the optics of the instrument.

The data from the Camera Can can be fed to one of three possible user interfaces:

LineVu Local – Monitoring natural gas contamination events as a process control parameter, the Camera Can is cable linked to a safe area controller, where image processing provides a live video stream and local alarm. This system may provide video and data to the site local network.

​Up to 48 Camera Cans may be connected to the site controller installed in a safe area.

LineVu Remote – Monitoring either single site or multiple sites, LineVu Remote includes an uplink to a secure server (either Process Vision’s or the Client’s server) allowing both remote and local access to live streamed video.  This system encrypts and compresses both video and data, and splits it into three sections for transmission via one or more mobile phone networks. An encrypted user interface is available to password protected users who may be a central technical resource, a control center (for unmanned sites), or the users client (in the case of custody transfer).

LineVu Mobile – LineVu mobile is used for temporary installations for surveys and de-bottlenecking projects. It combines the previous two versions. The Camera Can is cable linked to a Pelicase-mounted controller and uplink system giving the user a choice to store locally or live stream to store video and data on a remote server.