文档介绍：Considerations for Ambient Air Based Technologies for LNG
Regasification Terminals
Kamal Shah, , Technical Vice President
Judy Wong, ., Process Manager
Bill Minton, ., Process Consultant
Aker Kvaerner, Inc.
Houston, Texas
AIChE Spring Meeting, April 2008
8th Topical Conference on Natural Gas Utilization
New Orleans, Louisiana, April 6-10, 2008
Introduction
Increasing energy demand with declining domestic production has resulted in
increased energy cost. Most current operations at . LNG terminals utilize
bustion vaporizers (SCV) or fired heaters in a closed loop intermediate
fluid system with specially designed shell and tube heat exchangers to re-gasify LNG.
These gas fired systems utilize between to % of the inlet LNG as fuel, reducing
the natural gas available for the market and generating environmental emissions as
combustion products. Increased energy costs associated with recent developments in
environmental regulations have challenged LNG terminal developers to look to ambient
air based technologies instead of traditional technologies based on fuel gas firing. The
socio-political directives in the state of California and the agreement reached by the
northeast signatory states have also pushed for regulations towards greener
technologies.
Various papers1,2 published previously presented differences between the fuel
gas fired SCV, open rack vaporizers (ORV) utilizing sea water and specific ambient air
based technologies. It is generally well understood that the recovery of low grade heat
from ambient air to re-gasify LNG results in lower fuel consumption and operating cost.
In addition to the savings in operating cost, the reduced fuel gas use will result in lower
air emissions making the overall terminal more environmentally friendly. It is also
generally understood that the capital cost for ambient air based technologies is higher
because of the duplication or addit