Honeywell UOP Separex™ Membrane System Selected for Apache North American Shale Gas Processing
UOP membrane system will remove carbon dioxide from 150 million standard cubic feet per day of unconventional gas

UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced its UOP Separex™ membrane system has been selected for the removal of contaminants from natural gas produced from a large shale formation found in British Columbia.

Apache Corp. will use the UOP Separex membrane system to remove carbon dioxide from shale gas at its operations in the Horn River Basin of northeastern British Columbia. Removing impurities is a required step in upgrading the gas so it can be transported by pipeline for commercial use.

When complete, the land-based Separex system will remove carbon dioxide from 150 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas processed at the facility. Engineering will be complete this summer and the fabricated system will be delivered in the first quarter of 2011.

Apache Corp. is an oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the U.S., Canada, Egypt, the United Kingdom’s North Sea, Australia and Argentina. Apache, together with a joint venture partner, has more than 400,000 acres in the Horn River Basin.

Separex membrane systems can be installed on-shore or off-shore, require little to no utilities, and provide for very short start-up times and extreme turndown capabilities. Due to the low consumption of materials within the process, membrane technology is particularly desirable in remote locations where logistics make it difficult to transport supplies to site. To date, 130 Separex units have been installed worldwide.