TO INDUSTRIAL SAFETY OF HYDROGEN SULFIDE OIL TREATMENT UNITS

Abstract

The oil of some fields is characterized by a high content of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans significantly reducing the commercial product quality, besides, due to their high corrosion activity, contribute to emergencies. The oil refining method used at these fields, due to necessity of acid-base effluents neutralizing and the ingress of reaction products into commercial oil, requires adjustment. The article discusses the known physical and chemical methods of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans removal from oil indicating their advantages and disadvantages. Among the first ones are technologies based on the extraction of undesirable components due to oil separation, rectification or blowing-off. Chemical methods of hydrogen sulfide extraction from well products are based on its extraction with solutions of chemical reagents – hydrogen sulfide absorbers. The most promising among the considered technologies, in our opinion, is the method based on oil blowing-off with hydrocarbon gas. In this technology, the oil extraction from hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans is carried out by passing associated petroleum gas previously purified from hydrogen sulfide through the volume of oil in a column-type apparatus. One of the main advantages of the chosen method is the possibility of associated petroleum gas purification, which also guarantees a reduction in the probability of emergencies, since gas purified from hydrogen sulfide moves through gas pipelines.