Mercury in Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

For the last 30 years, P S Analytical (PSA) has been at the forefront of trace mercury (Hg) determinations from oil, gas and petrochemical samples. It has never been more important to understand the fate of Hg in all aspects of oil and gas exploration, refining and production. The corrosive nature of Hg reacting with aluminium; the fate of Hg within a process itself; the concentration of Hg in feedstock’s that could destroy expensive catalysts; as well as the Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) concerns that Hg poses are, of course, well documented and are often a key driver in operational decisions. For these reasons much effort is spent on Hg removal technology and PSA partners with many companies to monitor and help manage this Hg removal process. These partnerships happen from the research bench through to production with PSA taking a pivotal role in ensuring successful removal technologies are deployed in the real world.

PSA has analysers to suit all aspects of the monitoring and analysis of Hg, including laboratory instruments and on-line analysers for gases and liquids. More recently PSA has provided solutions for speciation (fractionation) analysis and also waste water systems associated with petrochemical processes. We are working closely with research groups developing and supplying mercury removal technologies by interfacing our process measurement systems in both the lab and in the field. Our systems offer multi-stream analysis so that the true efficiency of removal systems can be monitored by performing inlet and outlet measurements with one analyser. PSA offers an independent Hg survey and consultancy service to establish and verify results across the plant and to explain the significance and potential impacts of Hg. We have a great deal of experience performing mass balance studies for natural gas processing plants, liquid extraction processing plants and petrochemical plants. Mercury occupational exposure studies and the deployment of mercury management plans can also be provided using our team of mercury experts.

Employing Atomic Fluorescence as a means of detection the PSA analysers provide ultimate detection performance. Our analysers have detection limits in the part per trillion and over seven orders of magnitude linearity. These performance limits are not achievable with other techniques. Systems can be operated offline using laboratory based analysers or online using permanently installed field analysers. Systems are fully certified to operate in hazardous area locations. We are the only company to offer online systems for liquid hydrocarbons including unstabilised samples which are otherwise difficult to sample. PSA are able to provide a complete engineering solution including, analyser shelter, probes, sample lines, sampling conditioning systems and analyser. With multiple signal processing options, interfacing to the DCS is made easy. With literally thousands of systems in the field today, and support networks in Europe, SA and SE Asia, PSA offers the ideal package of performance, reliability and support.