Centre for Petroleum Fuels & Energy

Petroleum Fluids CHPR8531

Assignment 3 - HYSYS (Phase Behaviour)

Issued: Tuesday 20th April 2010

Due: 5:30 pm Tuesday 18th May 2010

Submit an electronic copy of your HYSYS PFD and an accompanying report

containing your answers to all questions, through WebCT.

Make sure you save a copy of your work in a reliable place, e.g. on a flash disk. Files
saved onto the MCL computers are likely to be deleted.

PART 1
The purpose of the exercises in Part 1 is to give you some familiarity with HYSYS by
calculating phase envelopes, and phase behaviour, using some of the Utility Packages. To
do Part 1 you will need the reference article by K.R. Gammie which describes the
processing strategy for the North Rankin A platform.

Reference: Gammie, K.R. 1983, Process Selection and Optimisation Studies – North
Rankin ‘A’, Woodside Petroleum Pty Ltd, Australia.

EXERCISE 1

The following is a typical composition of a Gas Condensate reservoir fluid (for simplicity
take C7+ as C7 and use the Peng-Robinson EOS):

GAS
Component CONDENSATE
%Mole
N2 0.29
CO2 1.72
C1 79.14
C2 7.48
C3 3.29
iC4 0.51
nC4 1.25
iC5 0.36
nC5 0.55
C6 0.61
C7+ 4.80

1. Use HYSYS to plot the phase envelope for this fluid. Answer the following with
reference to {T,P,Q} conditions in the article by K.R. Gammie:

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 • At year 1 Flowing Conditions would this fluid be single phase or 2-phase?
• At year 10 Flowing Conditions would this fluid be single phase or 2-phase?

As described in K.R. Gammie’s article, the gas condensate fluid now passes through a
production cooler and into the production separator. It is now time to simulate this
separator.

2. Enter the Simulation Environment and connect the stream through a cooler to a
separator. Set the separator conditions to the NRA process conditions (55°C and
11 MPa)
• Use the Envelope Utility and examine the phase envelope for each stream. Note
that you can associate an envelope with each stream.
• Export the 3 phase envelopes (Feed, Gas, Liquid streams) to Excel and graph
them on the one plot. (Paste the Excel plot into your written report as a figure.)
• Comment on the overlap and explain your observations.
• Examine the gas and liquid outlet compositions. Do they make sense?

The Envelope Utility can also produce quality lines.

3. Take the feed to the production separator and get HYSYS to calculate some quality
lines.
a. From your phase envelope and quality lines estimate the liquid/gas volume ratio.

The envelope utility can also calculate the Hydrate Formation Curve. While the prime
purpose of the NRA platform is to dehydrate the gas stream, and dewater the condensate
stream for anti-corrosion purposes, it is also essential to be outside the hydrate formation
region.

4. Get HYSYS to plot the hydrate formation curve for the gas outlet from the separator
and answer the following:
• Is hydrate formation a problem for pipeline transport to shore?
• At what T would hydrates begin to form in the pipeline (if there was any water
around)?

Export the quality line and hydrate curve calculations from HYSYS into Excel and combine
these with the dew and bubble point curves to produce a comprehensive P-T phase diagram
for the separator feed stream (by itself).

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 PART 2
The purpose of the Part 2 is to build on your capability to develop phase envelopes, and
calculate phase behaviour, with HYSYS, and so reinforce your fundamental knowledge of
how petroleum fluids behave.

EXERCISE 2

The following table gives the typical compositions (in mole %) of various reservoir fluids:

GAS VOLATILE
Component DRY GAS BLACK OIL
CONDENSATE OIL
N2 6.25 0.29 0.12 0.16
CO2 2.34 1.72 1.50 0.91
C1 81.13 79.14 66.59 36.47
C2 7.24 7.48 5.31 9.67
C3 2.35 3.29 4.22 6.95
iC4 0.22 0.51 0.85 1.44
nC4 0.35 1.25 1.76 3.93
iC5 0.09 0.36 0.67 1.44
nC5 0.03 0.55 1.12 1.41
C6 0.61 1.22 4.33
C7+ 4.80 16.64 33.29

5. Use HYSYS to plot the phase envelopes for each of the fluids. For simplicity take C7+
as C7 and use the Peng-Robinson EOS.

6. Tabulate the critical parameters (“real” and “pseudo”) as calculated by HYSYS.

Comment. (Consider the dependence of the critical parameters on composition)

7. Export the 4 phase envelopes to Excel and graph them on the one plot. Comment on the
variations of phase envelope from composition to composition. Is it what you expect?

EXERCISE 3

Figure 1 (on page 5) shows the experimentally determined phase diagrams for various
methane-ethane mixtures. Change the default units HYSYS uses for pressure and
temperature to the units in Figure 1. Use the critical properties utility to obtain the critical
parameters for each of the 10 mixtures. Tabulate these critical parameters (true and pseudo)
in your report.

Use HYSYS to generate the vapour pressure curves for pure methane and pure ethane, and
to generate the phase envelopes for the binary mixtures 4, 6 and 8. Export all of this data to
Excel, together with the critical parameters (true and pseudo) you calculated for all the
mixtures. Generate a graph, with the same scale and units as Figure 1, which contains all of
the information you exported from HYSYS. Your plot should contain the critical loci for
this system, the pseudo critical parameters for these ten mixtures, the vapour pressure
curves for the two pure components and the phase envelopes for the three mixtures.

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Compare your HYSYS generated plot with Figure 1, which was generated from
experimental data. Comment on the accuracy of HYSYS in predicting true-critical
parameters, the inadequacy of Kay’s Rule, and the accuracy of phase behaviour
calculations made with the PR EOS for this favourable case (neighbouring alkanes).

EXERCISE 4

Figure 2 (on page 6) gives the critical loci for all n-paraffin binary mixtures up to C10 (n-
decane). Generate your own version of Figure 2 (same scale & units) by exporting HYSYS
calculations to Excel in a similar fashion to what you did in Exercise 2. You only need to
consider pure methane and pure n-decane. Choose some (at least 4) compositions and use
the Critical Properties (and Envelope) Utility to obtain the critical parameters (true and
pseudo) for your mixtures. Use these parameters to produce the critical loci for C1 & C10
and compare this to Figure 2.

You should find that HYSYS calculates some interesting/bizarre phase diagrams for this
system! Export the phase envelope calculations for one of your C1-C10 mixtures that
displays this bizarre behaviour. Generate an Excel plot and comment.

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Figure 1: Phase Diagram of Methane-Ethane Mixtures

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Figure 2: Critical loci of binary n-paraffin mixtures