History of The Petroleum Industry in Canada (natural Gas Liquids) - Liquids Extraction in Turner Valley

Liquids Extraction in Turner Valley

Between 1924 and 1927, Royalite operated two gas processing facilities side-by-side in Turner Valley: the sweetening plant and the liquids plant.

The liquids extraction plant closed in 1927 and reopened in 1933 after the company revamped the facility. The new plant used "lean oil" absorption, a process that forced raw gas into contact with lean oil in chains of steel bubble caps. Improvement of the absorption medium and contact between the gas and the oil made for substantially higher rates of liquids recovery. The new plant was so successful that other companies built two similar plants in Turner Valley, and Royalite built a second plant to handle its production from the south end of the field. Gas and Oil Products Ltd. built a similar plant at Hartell in 1934 and British American (BA) opened one at Longview in 1936.

Once Alberta's Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board began operating in 1938, the BA and Gas and Oil Products Limited plants had to change their operations significantly. Only Royalite had a market for its residue of gas stripped of liquids in the Canadian Western Natural Gas distribution system. The other two plants flared or burned off most of their residue gas until the board ruled that only wells connected to a market could be produced, stopping the practice. Since the rule applied only to wells that tapped the oil reservoir's overlying gas cap, the Hartell and Longview plants stayed in operation by processing solution gas, or gas dissolved in oil from the Valley's wells.