American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2024 - 71

Resilient Supply Chains
Even if alternative scavengers merely
performed as well as MEA triazine, chemical
suppliers would have a strong reason
to look at other options to keep clients'
wells on line through supply chain disruptions.
When Hurricane Beryl caused
flooding in Houston, it became nearly
impossible to get MEA triazine. After the
city recovered, the market remained tight.
Triazine's price and scarcity also jumps
in response to disruptions in the supply
chains for its precursors. As a case in
point, a shortage began in late 2023 following
a fire and a series of explosions at
an ethylene oxide plant in Louisiana. The
resulting lack of ethylene oxide made it
more difficult to manufacture MEA and
thus MEA triazine.
Chemicals exist in a global market.
When something limits Europe's access
to MEA, U.S. suppliers rightly start shipping
it overseas to get a better price for
their product.
To mitigate market volatility, smart
chemical suppliers are investing in the
technical expertise, relationships and
equipment necessary to source alternatives.
Today, the most common alternatives
for scavenging gas include hemiacetals,
other reacted aldehydes and monomethylamine
(MMA) triazine, which resembles
MEA triazine. For treating liquids, the
options include hydanteoin, glyoxal, oxazolidine
and zinc carboxylates, as well
as MMA triazine.
Access to these alternatives can pay
huge dividends when unexpected events
put operators in a bind. In July, a large
midstream company reduced the H2S
concentration it would allow in one of its
oil pipelines, which forced several wells
to shut in. Thanks largely to the alternatives-and
a fleet of trucks capable of
delivering thousands of gallons to various
sites on short notice-those wells were
back on line within two days.
A New Need
Five years ago, a similar situation would
have vexed almost every chemical supplier.
Until recently, I rarely got calls from producers
reporting that wells had been shut
in because of excess H2S in the oil. Pipelines
likely have had to tighten standards to prevent
corrosion as operators increasingly
produce from sour formations.
Whatever the cause, it has proven the
adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
My team and I have spent many
days and nights developing specific testing
protocols, shaking bottles and field trialing
samples to come up with solutions. Those
solutions are evolving rapidly, with the
most recent innovations representing the
Whether a treatment vessel
is deployed alongside twins
to sweeten huge volumes, or
tasked with turning a small
amount of field gas into compressor
fuel, it needs to be
sized appropriately for the
application. For effective
treatment, the gas stream
also must enter the vessel
at a slow enough velocity
that it will interact with the
hydrogen sulfide scavenger
as it passes through.
SEPTEMBER 2024 71
fifth generation of chemistry. We still
have much to discover, but through a
mix of laboratory testing and trial and
error, we have come up with approaches
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2024
