Equinox specializes in front end development, facility design and construction projects that deal with treatment and purification of sour streams with varying levels of CO₂, H₂S, and mercaptans.

Mercaptans are organosulfur compounds, that may be targeted for removal during sour gas treating depending on the inlet mercaptan composition and sales mercaptan specification requirements. Common removal technologies include chemical reaction with caustic in the presence of a catalyst, absorption processes utilizing specialized physical solvents or adsorption into solid beds (i.e. molecular sieve). Equinox has extensive experience evaluating, selecting the most appropriate and cost effective Mercaptan Removal technology – for sour gas treating applications – and the removal of mercaptans from sour gas, NGL or Condensate.

Entrained mercaptans in facility inlet streams will be present in both the gas phase and the free condensate liquid phase. Depending on inlet concentrations and sales specifications the mercaptans can be removed downstream of the inlet condensate stabilization process, in the sour gas processing train upstream of refrigeration, or downstream of the refrigeration process by treating the NGLs.

For gas treating applications specialty physical solvents are utilized to remove mercaptans along with H₂S. Depending on inlet mercaptan concentrations the gas treating may not achieve sales specifications and additional treating of NGLs may be required.

For condensate applications, the Mercaptan Removal Unit (MRU) will be installed downstream of the Condensate Stabilizer package. Equinox will select the best fit-for-purpose based upon project specific criteria for H₂S, CO₂ and Mercaptans inlet concentrations and sales specifications.