Production challenges in developing sour gas reservoirs. Part II. Sulfur deposition in reservoirs and production equipment

Sulfur deposition in conventional sour gas production is now reasonably well understood and can be handled by use of a variety of commercially available solvent systems. A whole new technology, however, is now being developed to handle the much more severe deposition problems that will be encountered in the production of so-called super sour gas reservoirs. Deposition downhole of many thousands of pounds of sulfur per MMCF of super sour gas produced can be anticipated and corresponding super solvents will likely be needed to keep wells in production. The current leading candidate for such a super solvent role is catalyzed dimethyldisulfide used in a continuous circulation mode with surface solvent regeneration facilities being an essential economic requirement. The sulfur that was once a nuisance waste product in hydrocarbon gas production has now become an attractive resource and its recovery from super sour reservoirs presents the industry with new challenges that are already being aggressively addressed.