Twister BV today announced the successful start up of a new commercially-operated Twister Supersonic Separator system in Nigeria.
The Twister gas processing module is used for dew-pointing 120MMscfd of gas supplied as fuel gas to the 650MW Afam VI combined-cycle power plant, owned and operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC). The Twister module incorporates six supersonic separator tubes together with a chemical-free Hydrate Separator. The Twister design provides higher availability and reliability compared to traditional technologies, and usually provides lower lifecycle cost than traditional gas processing systems.
Twister technology was selected for the onshore Okoloma Gas Plant due to its ability to achieve water and hydrocarbon dew point specification without the need for a glycol plant, whilst also avoiding the need for a heat exchanger for inlet cooling. Twister systems are also being installed by Petrobras in Brazil and by Ecopetrol in Colombia.
Twister technology has benefited from extensive testing and operating experience at five onshore gas plants in the Netherlands, Nigeria and Norway, as well as over five years of continuous successful full-scale commercial operation on the Petronas/SSB B11 600 MMscfd production platform offshore East Malaysia.
In the late 1990s, Shell developed the basic principle of the Twister technology, which treats produced gas at supersonic velocities, extracting water and hydrocarbon liquids. Compared to conventional technologies, the process requires no chemicals and hence reduces exposure to hazardous gas emissions. It has no moving parts, permits near instant start-up and allows for considerable cost reduction, particularly for offshore installations. The Twister BV Company was established in 2001 to further advance and market the technology.
Further applications of Twister gas separation are being developed today for C3+ recovery, sub-sea gas dew-pointing, flareless gas processing and sour gas processing, some of which are already in pilot stage.