The Sulphur Industry In Alberta

Abstract

Introduction Recent increases in worldwide demand for sulphur have resulted in a rapid escalation of prices. This price increase has greatly improved the Canadian sulphur export picture. The Alberta net-back price now makes remelting of stockpiles profitable. For the first time since 1966, inventories are declining and sulphur can no longer be labelled an undesirable by product. As a result of these changes, more effort and sophistication is being applied to sulphur production and marketing. These improvements are likely to continue as a result of an increasing awareness and appreciation of the limitations on the economically· available stock of the resource in Alberta, and the rising cost of Frasch production elsewhere. This paper seeks to provide the reader with a brief description of the industry, its history and future, as well as related issues. History of the Industry In 1924, Royalite Oil Company Limited constructed the first commercial-scale gas processing plant in Alberta. This plant recovered natural gasoline and residue gas from the wet solution gas being flared. The first gas scrubbing plants utilized the Seaboard Process (later replaced by the Gerbitol Process) to remove hydrogen SUlphide gas; however, no sulphur was recovered. In 1934, Gas & Oil Products Limited, later Anglo American Exploration Ltd., constructed a plant near Hartell and in 1936 The British American Oil Company Limited built a plant near Longview. These three plants comprised the total natural gas processing industry in Western Canada until after the Leduc oil discovery in 1947. Since then, the plants at Longview and Hartell have ceased operations, but throughout the province numerous other plants had to be built to strip liquids and remove sulphur in order to render the gas marketable. The first plant to commercially extract sulphur from sour natural gas was the Shell Jumping Pound Plant. It was placed on stream in 1951 and was initially designed to process 990 thousand cubic metres per day of raw gas and recover about 30 tonnes per day of elemental sulphur. Regulatory Development Royalite No.4, which made the major natural gas discovery in 1924, ushered in an era of waste at Turner Valley. The only way to get a saleable product was to strip the condensate and flare the gas. Even before oil was discovered in 1931, it had been realized that gas flaring had robbed the reservoir of much of its virgin pressure. The oil and gas that would have otherwise been recovered had become locked into the pool forever. The Alberta government, concerned since 1930 about this loss of production and royalty, created the Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board in 1938 to enforce the Oil and Gas Conservation Act. In 1970, it became evident that Alberta needed to review its requirements for all forms of energy resources and provide a means of government-coordinated development of the petroleum in the province. The result was the passage in 1971 of the Energy Resources Conservation Act.