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Abstract
The recent discoveries of shale gas have caused a decrease in the price of natural gas,
which has opened a window of opportunities for its use not only as a source of energy
but also as a feedstock for the production of chemical products. In this work, the use of
shale gas for the production of ethylene is analysed. Two methods, the Oxidative
Coupling of Methane (OCM) and the Methanol to Olefins (MTO) process are
considered. The OCM is a direct-conversion process in which methane is converted to
ethylene using a catalytic reactor. The MTO is a process with several steps where
methane has to be first converted to syngas and then to methanol. The product, crude
methanol, is finally converted to ethylene. Based on process simulations, an assessment
of economic, energy and environmental considerations for each process was carried out.
The results show that the MTO process provides a better alternative for the production
of ethylene using shale gas. A sensitivity analysis shows that the OCM process can only
be profitable under low prices of shale gas and high prices of ethylene.
1. Introduction
The availability of natural gas has increased within the last decade due to the
implementation of new extraction techniques such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing, which have made possible the extraction of the denominated Shale gas,
trapped in low permeability rock formations. The new abundance of natural gas has
lowered the price of natural gas, encouraging its use not only as an energy source but
also as a feedstock for the production of valuable chemicals (Wang et al., 2014).
Although the production of some chemicals such as methanol have already been
analysed, there is a need for the analysis of other production processes that could be part
of the supply chain. One of the main building blocks for many products such as plastics,
resins and fibers is ethylene. Although ethylene is typically produced by thermal
cracking of ethane and propylene from natural gas, alternative processes for its
production using methane as feedstock have been gaining significance over the past few
years. Among the alternative processes for the production of ethylene, the Oxidative
Coupling of Methane (OCM) and a Methanol to Olefins (MTO) technology have raised
particular interest (Sundaram et al., 2010). The OCM is a direct process in which
methane is converted to ethylene using a catalytic reactor (Godini et al., 2013), while
the production of ethylene via methanol involves several steps (Vora et al., 1997).
The aim of this work is to evaluate the profitability of these two processes under a shale
gas scenario and perform an environmental assessment, in order to find the
486 A. Ortiz-Espinoza et al.
Before the shale gas can be sent through the pipelines to the production process, a
purification process is needed. It usually consists of an acid gas removal unit, a
dehydration unit, the removal of nitrogen and a series of distillation columns to remove
natural gas liquids (Bullin and Krouskop, 2009). Once purified, the gas is sent to the
production process that can be one of the following alternatives.
consists of CO and H2. For the reforming stage, different process are available (Julián-
Durán et al., 2014). In this work, steam methane reforming was chosen due to its
endothermic nature, which together with the high exothermic OCM process offers a
possible option for integrating both processes, as suggested in other works (Godini et
al., 2013). The second stage of the process is the methanol production; here the
synthesis gas is sent to a catalytic reactor to obtain crude methanol. Since methanol is to
be used as a feedstock, no purification process is needed. The final stages consist in the
Methanol-to-Olefins process. Crude methanol is sent through a catalytic reactor, where
the catalyst SAPO-34 provides a high selectivity to small linear olefins. The reactions
that take place in the reactor are:
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The reactor product is sent to a quenching tower, then CO2 and water are removed by an
absorber and dryer, and finally the different products are separated with a series of
distillation columns (Chen et al., 2005). In addition to the production of ethylene, a
significant amount of propylene is produced, which can be sold for a profit.
3. Results
Both processes were modelled in Aspen Plus using data from the literature. The
consumption of raw materials is reported in Table 2, while Table 3 shows the energy
requirements per kg of ethylene for each process. With the recycling of unreacted
methane, the consumption of fresh natural gas for the OCM was reduced to almost half
of the original amount. The energy consumption for the MTO process is slightly higher
for heating and cooling, but the electricity needed for the OCM process is considerably
higher than that for the MTO, which affects the process economics.
Economic evaluation
For the economic analysis, an operating period of 330 days per year and a tax rate of
30% were assumed. Also, a 10-year linear depreciation with a salvage value of 10% was
used. The working capital investment (WCI) was taken as 15% of the total capital
investment (TCI), with the rest belonging to the fixed capital investment (FCI) (El-
Halwagi, 2012). The estimations for the FCI of each process are shown in Table 4,
which were based on reported data and using the six-tenths rule for capacity adjustment.
For the MTO process, the value for the methanol plant and the methanol-to-olefins plant
were estimated separately. In order to compare the two processes, return on investment
(ROI) values were estimated (El-Halwagi, 2012),
Table 4. FCI and TCI estimated values for ethylene production processes.
The ethylene price was assumed as $0.65/lb, and for the MTO process the price for
propylene was set at $0.75/lb. The cost of shale gas, oxygen, and water for steam were
assumed as $3.5/kscf, $0.05/lb, and $0.74/m3 respectively (El-Halwagi, 2012). Table 5
summarizes the major economic results. Although the MTO plant has a higher FCI, its
ROI seems attractive, while the OCM process is not profitable under the scenario
considered here.
MTO OCM
Annual Income (MM$) $1,251.90 $716.49
Annual Operating Costs (MM$) $578.28 $1,044.38
Depreciation (MM$/yr) $131.95 $60.93
Tax Rate 0.3 0.3
ROI (%) 29.63 -26.52
Energy Integration
The operating cost of each process can be reduced through energy integration. In order
to identify the minimum cooling and heating utilities, a thermal pinch analysis was
carried out. Figure 1 shows the grand composite curves for each production alternative.
A minimum driving force of 10 K was used. It can be observed that the heating utilities
can be reduced to zero in both cases, while the cooling utilities can be lowered to 2233
MMBtu/h for the MTO process and 1335 MMBtu/h for the OCM process. If
cogeneration is considered, the cooling utilities can be further reduced to 0 for the MTO
and 535 MMBtu/h for the OCM process, with the generation of 64 MW and 21 MW
respectively. Details of the cogeneration method can be found in El-Halwagi (2012).
Considering the energy integration and the cogeneration implementation, the ROI of the
processes increases to 37.66% for the MTO and to -14.23% for the OCM.
Figure 1. Grand composite curves for the MTO (a) and the OCM (b) processes.
Analysis of two alternatives to produce Ethylene from Shale Gas 489
Sensitivity analysis
A sensitivity analysis was carried out to evaluate the impact on the process profitability
due to changes in products and feedstock prices. Figure 2 shows the ROI for ethylene
prices ranging from $0.5 to $0.9 per pound and shale gas prices (pipeline quality) from
$2/kSCF to $6/kSCF. It can be seen that the OCM process can only make a profit at
high prices of ethylene and very low prices of shale gas.
Figure 2. Sensitivity analysis for the MTO (a) and OCM (b) process at different prices of ethylene
and shale gas.
Environmental Assessment
To estimate the environmental impact, CO2 emissions were calculated for each process.
CO2 equivalents for outlet streams were obtained from Aspen Plus simulations. The
emissions due to the use of the utilities were estimated with the EPA method for
stationary combustion sources (EPA, 2008), and the CO2 emissions related to the use of
electricity were assessed using a factor of 0.73 MT of CO2/MWh (EIA, 2014). The total
amount of CO2 emissions for each process is shown in Table 6. The MTO shows a
higher impact due to purge streams that contain syngas, as this is translated into high
CO2 equivalents.
4. Conclusions
The development of flowsheets for two processes to produce ethylene from shale gas
and the results from their simulations using the ASPEN Plus® process simulator have
been presented. From an economic basis, the MTO process showed the best
profitability, with a high ROI, while the OCM process showed a suitable profitability
only at low shale gas prices and high ethylene prices. Such unfavourable economics of
the OCM process could be overcome with the design of new catalysts that provide
490 A. Ortiz-Espinoza et al.
better reaction performance with respect to the information collected for the
development of this work. The starting of a demonstration facility for the production of
ethylene with this technology has recently been announced (Greenwood, 2014). The
information about the catalyst details, however, is not available.
On energy and environmental aspects, the estimation of energy integration targets
showed that both processes could be self sufficient in terms of their heating duties.
From an environmental viewpoint, the MTO process showed higher CO2 emissions than
the OCM process, although this issue could be resolved by reducing purge streams or
using them for another process.
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