Natural gas without question is a valuable natural energy resource in all regions of the globe. However, in many oil production fields natural gas can create a difficult operational dilemma. Many oil-producing regions produce what is generally referred to as "associated" natural gas. This associated natural gas is natural gas co-produced from what is primarily an oil production zone. When a surplus volume of low pressure gas is produced from oil fields it can be located quite a distance from a gas pipeline, or from a gas gathering system, leaving oil & gas operators with very few options other than to simply flare the surplus natural gas on location. The result is a terrible wasting of a valuable natural resource and the release of pollutants into the atmosphere.
R3 Sciences began development on a solution to the flare gas dilemma over three years ago. The primary goal is to develop a field-functional gas-to-liquid (GTL) process particularly suited for low pressure surplus natural gas. By bringing together a family of innovative gas processes coupled with a unique gas-liquid reactor design and catalyst combination, R3 Sciences has proven it is able to achieve exceptionally high gas conversion efficiencies in a single reactor pass. Field prototype work is ongoing with commercial applications being evaluated.
R3 Sciences is introducing new, mini-plant systems capable of producing methanol from low pressure natural gas. The technology R3 Sciences uses to accomplish this task is a combination of field-proven gas processing methods coupled with the new R3 Sciences catalytic reactor. A team of innovation-minded scientists from around the world are diligently working to complete the construction on the 'first-of-a-kind' mini-plant process capable of producing valuable liquid gas product from flare gas volumes.
The current design is based upon a modular-skid approach and will provide an easily transportable system to be quickly and easily field assembled. The size and capacity of the initial system will be capable of handling 200,000 standard cubic feet per day of natural gas. Initially larger volumes can be handled by a scale-out approach using multiple systems. In the future R3 Sciences envisions larger capacity systems.
The team at R3 Sciences believe by developing the mini-plant systems we are better able to take advantage of a distributed process/production model. This model places production systems near the source of the natural gas eliminating the high cost of pipeline networks and cost of gas conditioning. Product produced is trucked from locations in the same manner crude oil is transported.