Cascade Utilization of Fuel Gas Energy in Gtl Plant

This paper investigates on a GTL plant with ATR syngas production and proposes a new process to use GT/WHRGSP to replace the fired heater. The new process features cascade utilization of fuel gas energy , as fuel gas is firstly used in a GT at very high temperature and then lower-temperature GT exhaust gas is further used for preheating. Large exergy loss of heat transfer in the fired heater is eliminated. The improved process has an equivalent power generation efficiency of 80% which is significantly higher than conventional technology. Economic analysis indicates 129.8 M$ revenue would be produced over the lifetime if the extra power from a 15 ,000 bbl/d GTL plant can be exported to the grid at the price of COE for a conventional NGCC plant. The new process proposed in this paper would be economically attractive when a GTL plant is based on ATR syngas production and exporting excess power is feasible.