The three country convoy of the China Russia Kazakhstan "Green Energy Silk Road Ten Thousand Miles Tour" arrived in the last province of the Chinese section of the event, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and supplemented LNG at the PetroChina Kunlun Energy Hami Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant (hereinafter referred to as Hami LNG plant).

The next day, under the leadership of Kang Fuyuan, Assistant General Manager of Kunlun Energy Company and General Manager of the China segment of the fleet, the China Kazakhstan Russia fleet visited the Hami LNG plant together, fully understanding the production, processing, storage and transportation processes of China's LNG plant, and promoting the connectivity of the entire industry chain of LNG vehicles, LNG refueling stations, and LNG plants among China, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

The Hami LNG plant is located on the west side of the Harrow Road 13 kilometers away in Hami City. As one of the factories under Kunlun Energy with the highest proportion of self-produced and self sold products, its own terminals have an average annual digestion rate of 99%, covering eight parts of the LNG plant's heat medium system, heavy hydrocarbon storage and transportation system, natural gas valve station, LNG plant main process area, loading area, LNG plant control center, and CNG (compressed natural gas) mother station production area.

From raw gas to entering storage tanks and loading systems, the production of LNG goes through approximately seven steps.

The first step is for the raw material gas to enter the filter separator for further separation and removal of entrained liquid droplets and solid particles.

The second step is to measure the raw gas and enter the amine contact tower, where it is fully contacted with the amine solution to remove acidic gases from the raw gas.

The third step is to remove the acidic natural gas and enter the molecular sieve dryer to remove the water and low molecular weight thiols that were not removed by the upstream amine unit.

Step four, the dehydrated natural gas enters the mercury removal bed to remove trace amounts of mercury that may be present in the feed gas.

The fifth step is to analyze the feed gas in real time, and the feed gas with qualified indicators after deacidification, dehydration, and mercury removal enters the ammonia precooler for sufficient heat exchange with liquid ammonia, and performs preliminary precooling on the feed gas.

Step six, the pre cooled natural gas enters the heavy hydrocarbon washing system to remove the recombined molecules above C5 in the feed gas, and then enters the cold box. It is fully heat exchanged with the mixed refrigerant and gradually cooled to -160 ℃ before leaving the cold box.

Step seven, LNG enters the delivery pipeline and ultimately enters the LNG storage tank.

Feng Fan, a process engineer at Hami LNG Plant, introduced the heat medium system of the LNG plant to the Three Kingdoms Fleet.

 The system mainly consists of a heat medium furnace, a heat medium circulation pump, a heat transfer oil storage tank, and a heat exchanger.

 The function of the heat medium system is to use the heated heat transfer oil to provide a heat source for the heating equipment in the LNG plant.

 The fuel for thermal oil is BOG gas from the factory (liquid evaporation produces flash gas, Boil off Gas), with a consumption of approximately 30 cubic meters per hour.

Next, the convoy visited the factory's 50 cubic meter heavy hydrocarbon storage tank.

 During the process of natural gas liquefaction into LNG, components above C5 are removed, and the resulting byproduct heavy hydrocarbons are stored here.

 Heavy hydrocarbons are loaded onto trucks through loading pumps and loading arms.

The convoy also visited the main process area of the Hami LNG plant.

 Here, after purification, natural gas is liquefied into LNG step by step through steps such as ammonia pre cooling, heavy hydrocarbon washing, and cryogenic processes.

At present, the intake volume of Hami LNG plant is 80000 cubic meters per day, and the LNG production is about 51 tons per day.

The fourth part of the visit is the natural gas station.

 The gas source for the Hami LNG plant comes from the Hami Off load Station of the West East Gas Pipeline 2, and is transported to the gate station through an 18 kilometer natural gas pipeline. The design capacity of the long-distance pipeline and gate station is 500000 cubic meters per day.

The main function of a natural gas valve station is to allocate the use of natural gas.

 The Hami LNG natural gas station is now divided into factory gas, mother station gas, and Hami New District civil gas supply.

The processed LNG will be transported to LNG storage tanks and LNG loading areas.

The effective capacity of the storage tank in Hami LNG plant is 1000 cubic meters. The tank structure is a mother and child tank structure, consisting of four 250m sub tanks inside. The interlayer adopts a cooling method of pearl sand and nitrogen pressure, and can store up to 380 tons of LNG.

The loading area of the Hami LNG plant is mainly composed of loading pumps, loading arms, and quantitative loading control systems, which can achieve remote start stop, quantitative filling, and emergency shutdown functions. Two loading spaces can be filled simultaneously, and a 40 ton tanker loading operation can be completed within one hour.

In the control center of the factory, the data of the entire factory is gathered here.

 The control center integrates video surveillance system, gas detection and alarm system, fire emergency system, high-voltage distribution operating system, and factory DSC operating system. Operators can remotely issue various control instructions, adjust process parameters, and optimize factory production capacity from the control center.

At present, the comprehensive capability of the control system can ensure that the factory operates smoothly for more than 8000 hours per year.

In addition to the LNG production area, the three country fleet also visited the CNG mother station production area.

 The design scale of this production area is 100000 cubic meters per day, and the main equipment includes dehydration pry, compressor, odorization pry, and inflation column. The natural gas distributed by the gate station undergoes dehydration, odorization, and pressurization here, and is loaded into the bundle trailer, which is then transported to each station by the tractor.

Image source of the CNG mother station production area in Hami factory: Hami LNG factory

The current natural gas processing capacity of Hami LNG plant is 26.6 million cubic meters per year.

 Last year, it processed 22.74 million cubic meters of natural gas, and it is expected to process 26.6 million cubic meters of natural gas this year.

Next year, the Hami LNG plant will undergo expansion.

 After the completion of the project, its LNG products can radiate within a 500 kilometer radius around Hami City, which will further enhance the factory's reserve peak shaving capacity and product market share.