BCCK Expands and Hires in The Woodlands, Texas

BCCK’s expansion in the Houston area is a key marker in the company’s growth strategy, increasing BCCK’s ability to service both existing and future markets. A new office is up and running in The Woodlands.

Complementing the company’s capabilities already in place at the corporate headquarters in Midland, Texas, the new office is enabling BCCK to create more jobs in the engineering, project management, design and inside sales disciplines, and the prime office location is helping BCCK to increase the global reach for its patented technology.

Recently, BCCK has appointed Don Tyler as Director of Engineering who will spearhead the development of a fully disciplined engineering capability in The Woodlands. Don has more than 40 years of combined engineering, design, project and discipline management experience in the natural gas processing, industrial wastewater treatment, power, paper and chemical processing industries. He has been involved in more than 40 domestic and international natural gas liquids (NGL) and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) recovery and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects with a range of engineering firms. He co-invented five NGL recovery patents, as well as inventing the geothermal energy patent, “Subsurface Well Completion System Having a Heat Exchanger” (U.S. Patent 8,672,024 B2).

Furthermore, BCCK has also appointed Lucia Cheung as Proposal Manager, responsible for introducing and implementing all proposal procedures, based at the new office. Cheung has more than 20 years of engineering, business development, finance and project execution experience across the oil and gas, chemicals, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. Her extensive experience includes projects in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Indonesia and Singapore.

For more information on how our Woodlands or Midland teams can help you, give us a call on 1-800-922-2599 to schedule a meeting with a BCCK representative to discuss your needs.

Get the Best of Both Worlds with C₂R-Flex

BCCK’s patented technology, C2R-Flex™, is an NGL extraction process that allows for maximum margins for the customer, despite the ethane liquid market.   If the recovered component of ethane is negative in value when sold as a liquid product compared to the BTU value of ethane, then the producer will want to reject the ethane component from the NGL product while maximizing the recovery of propane and heavier components. Conversely, if the ethane component is positive in value when sold as liquid product, then the producer will want to maximize the recovered ethane in the NGL product.

C2R-Flex™ was introduced to the market as a truly unique, highly economical technology that offers the best of both worlds. C2R-Flex™ works efficiently in ethane rejection as well as ethane recovery, with minimal conversion time required to convert from one operational configuration to the other.

C2R-Flex™ benefits extreme operating conditions. In the case of ethane rejection, C2R-Flex™ enables users to reject down to approximately 2% of ethane in the product while still retaining over 98% of propane recovery. In ethane recovery mode, C2R-Flex™ can retain over 98% of ethane and 100% of the propane.   The transition between one operating mode to the other can be accomplished quickly with no additional equipment required. This option enables frequent operational mode changes, if desired, assuring maximum profitability.

BCCK’s C2R-Flex™ technology can effectively operate in three modes:

• In ethane recovery mode:   Over 98% ethane and near 100% of all heavier products
• In ethane rejection mode, option 1:   Ethane recovery of less than 2% and 98% plus for propane using auxiliary propane refrigeration
• In ethane rejection mode, option 2:  Ethane recovery of less than 2% and 98% plus for propane without using auxiliary propane refrigeration.  Note that this option will require additional residue compression as compared to option 1.

As C2R-Flex™ proved itself as a unique and flexible process solution for both ethane recovery and ethane rejection at a competitive price. In 2018, BCCK entered into an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Discovery DJ Services (Discovery) for delivery of a 225 MMSCFD gas plant in Weld County, Colorado, U.S., more than doubling Discovery’s processing capacity.

To find out more about how C2R-Flex™ can benefit your upcoming project, call us at 1-800-922-2599 to schedule a meeting with a BCCK representative to discuss your needs.

NiTech^® Style III: Simple, Flexible, Efficient

BCCK designed NiTech^® as a nitrogen rejection technology that eliminates cryogenic rotating equipment and allows for a wide variation of inlet nitrogen concentrations. Cryogenic rotating equipment is consistently responsible for facility downtime and excessive operating expense due to its high power consumption and maintenance requirements.

Furthermore, NiTech^® features a simple process design requiring minimal operator attention comprising only five major components. This reduces capital costs (CAPEX) and delivery time when compared to conventional technology. The success of the flagship NiTech^® NRU in Oregon prompted the installation of 28 additional NiTech^® facilities in the domestic United States. Although each unit is centered on the core NiTech^® design, each facility has unique challenges due to differing gas compositions, flowrates and operating conditions.

During the 25-year history of NiTech^®, there have been three major revisions to the process design. Style III represents a new design that allows greater flexibility with respect to compositional changes or flow capacity changes than ever before. With better efficiencies on residue gas compression, NiTech^® Style III is a highly competitive addition to the marketplace. It can be modified to produce LNG and can be customized to extract incoming helium and NGL’s from the inlet gas stream. In addition, where methane emissions are critical, the base NiTech^™ III unit can be configured with a vent stream purifier to reduce the vented methane to extremely low levels.  With the purifier installed, the vented stream would contain between 0.1 and 0.2 percent methane.

NiTech^® technology is not constrained by low mole % nitrogen gas streams and does not require a nitrogen recycle stream costing additional capital and operating expenses (OPEX). NiTech^® can process inlet gas to less than 1.0 mole %, allowing BCCK to slipstream and reduce a customer’s CAPEX and OPEX requirements. The ability to handle higher mole % nitrogen in gas is important in meeting downstream pipeline specification and the fact that the NiTech^® process emits no non-methane volatile organic compounds (VOCs) makes it an environmentally friendly solution, achieving 99% or greater hydrocarbon recovery.

As a result of BCCK’s proven successful track record with the technology, in 2018, Navitas Midstream Midland Basin, LLC, chose to incorporate a second NiTech^® Style III in the construction of a nitrogen rejection unit (NRU) in West Texas. The unit is designed to process natural gas with concentrated nitrogen on the residue of a new cryo plant.

+To find out more about the NiTech^® process, benefits and see a selection of NRU facility photos.

Easy as EPC

The world is feeling the effects of low commodity prices with respect to oil and natural gas. For those that depend on these commodities to run their business, it is obviously a very tough and trying time. Current crude pricing in the US is trending toward US$30/bbl, with natural gas prices consistently staying below US$3/dth. In this environment, oil and gas companies have had to find ways to survive and to keep projects economical. As there are limited actions that can be taken to increase project income relative to commodity price, the most obvious way to increase the potential economic viability of a project is to reduce capital expenditures and ongoing operational expenses. Cost reduction measures can be applied in drilling/lifting, gathering or processing of gas associated with crude production. There are several ways to reduce the costs associated with gas processing; however, one way to enjoy immediate cost reductions is to utilise a full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the design and installation of processing facilities, whether it be a simple compressor station or a full cryogenic processing plant.

>> READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Nitrogen Rejection with Integrated High NGL Extraction

Estimates place as much as 25% of the natural gas in the United States out of specification with regard to nitrogen content. Typically, a processor can expect the pipelines to require less than 3.0 mole percent nitrogen in their natural gas stream. With a decline in conventional natural gas sources and with a recent increase in political desire to better utilize clean burning natural gas, there is a need for these unconventional sources of natural gas. For the United States to also become energy independent, natural gas will have to take a larger role in our daily lives in the future. There is no doubt that shale gas is propping up the decline curve with respect to conventional gas, but low-BTU gas is another economically viable option. With the recent increase in oil prices, there is now a greater opportunity for nitrogen rejection with integrated NGL extraction, and specifically high NGL recovery. The increase in spread value for the liquid constituents of high nitrogen natural gas streams increases the net revenue for the producers thus making the high nitrogen projects more attractive for producer investment. In the future it may also become a requirement for these type facilities should they produce a motor fuel grade product. Even today, there are requirements for motor fuel grade LNG to contain no less than 95% methane, thus making high NGL extraction mandatory for motor fuel grade LNG.

READ THE ARTICLE

Nitrogen Separation Technologies

Nitrogen Separation Technologies: Best Served Hot or Cold?

Today’s market of sustainable high gas prices and dwindling reserves has caused producers to consider non-traditional sources of revenue generation. Once considered trash gas or a waste stream, high nitrogen reserves are now being reexamined as economically viable. In the past, smaller gas wells that tested high in nitrogen were simply shut in because the cost of producing such gas was not feasible. Today, however, advancements in technology, in both cryogenic separation and pressure swing adsorption and absorption have made nitrogen rejection a profitable reality, even for smaller gas streams.

In order to effectively evaluate the most applicable nitrogen technology available for a specific high nitrogen gas scenario, several factors should be considered. On the market today there are essentially three types of processing appropriate for nitrogen rejection; cryogenic processing (conventional cryogenic systems), the single column NiTech^® process, and non-cryogenic processing including pressure swing absorption, membrane systems, and lean oil adsorption. The differences in the competing technologies are substantial. In addition to upfront capital costs, the producer should also consider the following factors when selecting a valid nitrogen rejection technology for their gas processing demands.

READ THE ARTICLE