Caroline Plant Tour

Caroline Complex
  1. Administration Building – Completed February 1992, this building has forty-five offices for staff, technical support, management, maintenance planning, and purchasing. Also houses an on-site lab, instrumentation, electrical, and main shop areas, warehouse, shipping and receiving, tool crib, safety shop, and emergency response bay.
  2. Welding Shop and Cold Storage Building – This is the home for spare parts as well as where all the welding is done for the Complex.
  3. Fractionator, Condensate Stabilizer and Recycle Compressor – This gas plant is actually two gas plants or “trains” built beside each other. This is to increase reliability. The raw gas and liquid come in separate lines from the field and are commingled (mixed) in the Feed Fractionator. The condensate (C5+) and gases are separated in the three level fractionation skid. The flash gas (gas which has flashed off the Condensate Stabilizer due to an addition of heat) is recompressed by the Recycle Compressor and re-injected into the front end of the train. The condensate is shipped to BP Amoco at Rangeland where they ship it to refineries, as well as Shell’s Scotford Refinery near Edmonton. At the refinery it is made into auto gasoline or jet fuel. We ship enough condensate in a day to make enough gasoline to drive 35 million kilometers. That’s enough that after five days production, you could drive to the sun!
  4. Towers – The towers you can see in Train I are the (a) MDEA Contactor, (b) Sulfinol Contactor, (c) MDEA Regenerator, and (d) Sulfinol Regenerator. The towers’ job is to remove the H2S and CO2 from the gas. This is done in the MDEA and Sulfinol Contactors. Gas bubbles up from the bottom of the tower through trays. MDEA and Sulfinol trickle down through the towers “contracting” or picking up the H2S and CO2 out of the gas. In the regenerators the solution is boiled to let go of the H2S and CO2. The regenerated MDEA and Sulfinol return to the Contactors. The H2S goes to the Sulphur Plant where it is converted from H2S to sulphur. The clean (sweet) gas is sent to the Deep Cut Unit.
  5. Solution Coolers and Motor Control Center (MCC) – The Solution Coolers cool the gas treating solution (the MDEA and Sulfinol that remove the H2S from the gas) using fans to force air over tubes that contain the solution. The MCC contains electrical switch gear, such as large circuit breakers and motor starters.
  6. Deep Cut Plant - Sweet gas (gas with H2S removed) from gas treating unit comes into Deep Cut. Here it is cooled to -110°C. The Deep Cut knocks out natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane, and pentane) as a mix C2+. These products are then transported by Pembina Pipelines to the Shell/Dow Fractionator in Edmonton and split into individual components.
    • Ethane is used for making plastics and ethanol
    • Propane is used for home heating or BBQ’s
    • Butane is in cigarette lighters and gasoline additives
    Dry sweet sales gas is what is left and it is sold to Trans-Canada where it is distributed to the consumers using underground pipelines. This is the natural gas you burn in the furnace in your house.
  7. Emergency Flare Stack and Flare Drum – To prevent equipment and vessels from over pressuring they have pressure control valves. These valves release into the flare system. The flare has a continuous, automatic pilot to ensure any gas sent to the flare is combusted. We have two air blowers that blow air up the stack to aid complete combustion. The stack height is 85 meters. The top of the flare stack is the same elevation as Roger’s Pass. The Flare Drum separates any liquids from the gas before flaring.
  8. Waste Water Handling System – Waste water treatment pond is for the treatment of water from floor drains and process drains. This water is pumped down the water disposal well from the waste water pond.
  9. Waste Management Pad – Any chemicals or WHMIS controlled material is stored here. Any spills drain to the Process Pond.
  10. Sulphur Plant Reaction Furnaces and Sulphur Plant Claus Reactors – The Sulphur Plant Reaction Furnaces partially burn acid gas (H2S and CO2) converting it sulphur. The majority (90%) of the steam requirements for the plant are generated from the excess heat generated here in the Waste Heat Boilers. The Sulphur Plant Claus Reactors also convert H2S to Sulphur. 96% Sulphur recovery from the raw inlet gas is achieved in these two large diameter vessels and associated equipment.
  11. SCOT (Shell Claus Off-Gas Treating) – A Shell patented process for tail gas clean-up. Up to 99.9% sulphur recovery is accomplished here. This large section of the sulphur train is to recover the last 4% of the sulphur. This enables our plant to have the best sulphur recovery in Canada.
  12. Sulphur Degas Pit – All the sulphur from the sulphur plant passes through the sulphur degas pit. The underground pit holds approximately 4 000 tonnes of the hot molten sulphur and operates like a huge jacuzzi. Air is bubbled through the liquid sulphur to knock out any residual H2S to reduce the odor of the sulphur.
  13. Incinerator, Incinerator Stack, SCOT Plant Coolers and Cooling Tower – At the incinerator the combustion of the remaining tail gas occurs. The height and temperature of the stack cause the emissions to disperse. The stack is 85 metres high. The SCOT Plant Coolers cool quench water and treating chemicals (MDEA). The Cooling Tower cools water that is used to cool a variety of process streams throughout the plant for reuse. On top of the tower there are large round fans that cool the water. Water vapor from this tower represents the majority of the water loss in the process (3 000 m3/day) due to evaporation.
  14. Condensate Tanks – Condensate is stored here and pumped to Rangeland for shipment through inter-provincial pipelines. We try and maintain the level in the tanks to reduce possible odors.
  15. Degassing Sulphur Storage Tank and Sulphur Pipeline Pumping Station – The Degassing Sulphur Storage Tanks store sulphur ready to be pumped to Shantz. Less than 5 ppm residual H2S in the sulphur. This tank holds 6 000 tonnes of sulphur. As another odor reduction initiative, the sulphur tank has piping installed to bypass it, except in an emergency. The Sulphur Pipeline Pumping Station pumps liquid sulphur to Shantz in a 42 km pipeline. There is more than 5 000 tons of sulphur pumped to Shantz per day.
  16. Steam Condensers – Convert steam back into water so it can be used again. The majority of the steam is used to boil the solutions in the MDEA and Sulfinol Regenerators.
  17. Emergency Generator Building – The plant has two back up electric generators. In addition, three power sources from Utilicor make the power service very reliable.
  18. Utility Boiler – Produces 10% of the steam used, while the Sulphur Plant produces 90% of the steam used. Majority of our prime equipment, such as the air blowers, and circulation pumps are run on steam. Spare equipment is electric.
  19. The Control Room – Contains the heart of the plant. Thirteen monitors, three operators twenty-four hours a day run the Distributed Control System (DCS), the computerized system that operates and monitors the plant and field. Over 13 000 different alarms can ring into the control room.

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