Gas processing plant

(condensate processing plant; GPP) is an industrial enterprise for natural and associated gas, gas condensate processing and production of single-component hydrocarbons and their mixtures as well as associated products (sulfur, helium) and motor fuels.
First GPPs in Russia for petroleum gases processing were established in the 1920s (with the capacity of 100 to 300 cubic meters per day) and were intended only for gas stripping. In the 1930s the former USSR built GPPs for associated petroleum and natural gases processing in Bashkiria, Tatarstan, the Kuibyshev Region, the North Caucasus, etc. Gas processing as an independent industrial sector emerged in the former USSR in the late 1960s – early 1970s due to the gas industry boom.
Modern GPPs (Astrakhan, Orenburg, Sosnogorsk GPPs, Urengoy Condensate Treatment Plant, Surgut Condensate Stabilization Plant) are the enterprises processing dozens of billion cubic meters of gas and gas condensate per annum. They are usually comprised of a gas and condensate collection and treatment unit, compressor stations, processing facilities (acid components removal, gas stripping and drying, separation of ethane, propane, butane, pentane; production of sulfur, gas condensate stabilization and processing) as well as auxiliary facilities, tank farms, water, steam and power supply systems.
Gazprom performs the following process operations at its processing enterprises: gas separation (identical to in-field gas separation), deep dehydration and extraction of light hydrocarbons by low-temperature condensation and rectification, production of helium and ethane by fractioned condensation during deep refrigeration of gas, absorption of acid components by amine solutions, absorption of mercaptans by zeolites, low temperature oil absorption and condensation.