(320a) Transportable, Modular Plant for Conversion of Stranded Gas to Low-Carbon Methanol

Reducing and eliminating methane emissions is critical to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and responsibly addressing climate change. As the US and other countries rely heavily on fossil fuels, oil and gas wellheads will continue to operate for decades. The majority of the unconventional wellheads in the US are small and remote, which results in the use of flares to burn associated gas (primarily methane) into CO₂; however, the conversion efficiency of these flares is limited. Directly converting methane-rich wellgas into liquid methanol helps decarbonize and reduce GHGs while simultaneously producing a valuable product using an otherwise wasted feedstock. Energy efficient, autonomous, and mobile chemical platforms are required to reach the many remote and stranded wellheads in the US and around the world. The approach of a trailer-mounted gas-to-methanol plant addresses the issues with small and isolated wellheads, converting wellgas directly into methanol on site. Modular and transportable units could handle volumes between 65–120 million standard cubic feet per day (Mscf/day), which would yield approximately 800 gallons of stabilized methanol per day. Other sources of GHGs, such as biogas from agricultural operations, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, could also be mitigated with the same gas-to-liquid technology. The M2X Energy process employs an engine-based partial-oxidation reformer technology, tolerant of wellgas contaminants, to convert the feed gas into a hydrogen-rich syngas intermediate that is converted into liquid methanol downstream. Conversion of syngas to methanol is a mature commercial process, which helps mitigate risk and technological development downstream. To develop a mobile and transportable platform, all factors such as throughput, size, weight, energy, and cost must be balanced and addressed. Furthermore, size and weight are coupled with maintenance, accessibility, and manufacturability. Higher wellgas throughput increases the overall size and weight of process equipment, which ultimately limits serviceability and requires special assembly for a finite and constrained mobile footprint. Engineering tradeoffs and size-cost-capacity limitations direct the design for the mobile chemical platform. Optimization of these parameters will lead to a scalable commercial wellgas-to-methanol system that could be deployed at remote wells across the US and worldwide. M2X Energy is currently putting a 65 Mscf/day demonstrator unit in the field to directly convert wellgas into methanol. The demonstrator unit will be used as a platform to scale-up, commercialize, and deploy multiple wellgas-to-methanol systems.