Small LnG plants could have big market impacts

www.platts.com/IM.Platts.Content/Downloads/externalmedia/26Nov12IE.pdf.

Sometime next year, if all goes according to plan, an ordinary tractor-trailer rig will pull up to an oil and gas drilling pad in a US shale play that is flaring a lot of gas because it is not close to any pipelines

or other gas-gathering infrastructure. In the span of just a few hours or at most a few days, workers will set up a uniquely small liquefied natural gas plant on that drilling pad that fits entirely within the confines of that 53-foot-long rubber-tired trailer. This plant will allow the drilling company to convert the flared gas to LNG right on site, as well as separate out the even more valuable butane, propane and other natural gas liquids (NGLs).

The company can then truck both of those commodities to market, or even use some of the LNG to fuel drilling rigs in that same shale play that have been consmall LnG plants could have big market impacts

verted to run on LNG instead of diesel. At least that’s the plan for DresserRand, a Houston-based company that designs and builds compressors, turbines and a host of other heavy equipment and engineering solutions for the oil, gas and power sectors in the US and abroad. Dresser-Rand recently signed a licensing agreement that allows it to manufacture and sell a newly developed type of LNG plant that is much smaller and more mobile than any other liquefaction technology on market. Brad Dickson, Dresser-Rand’s vice president and chief marketing officer, says the technology will allow exploration & development companies to capture and monetize gas and the more valuable NGLs that they are currently flaring off in remote locations that do not have. . .