Consider low-strength acid gas processing retrofit options for sulfur recovery

N. Al-Qahtani, L. Alberts and S. Shahrani, Saudi Aramco, Haradh, Saudi Arabia The natural gas fields feeding Saudi Aramco’s Haradh gas plant in Haradh, Saudi Arabia contain gas with more CO2 content than H2S. The nature of the feedstock requires several technology options to optimize plant economics and operations. The low H2S-to-CO2 concentration ratio in the feed gas, and the subsequently removed acid gas, challenges the typical Claus-based sulfur recovery (SR) option. It requires substantial upstream acid gas enrichment (AGE) to concentrate the acid gas sufficiently to support the required high SR. To overcome this challenge, engineers at the Haradh gas plant used the mean of AGE with l