fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractThis paper will share the experience of PETRONAS in managing and executing its Mercury Removal Project, one of the world's first mercury removal projects for raw and untreated condensate. It focuses on the selection of the appropriate technology for the project, the additional steps taken in mitigating the project risks, and the issues and challenges encountered during project execution. The paper will also share the challenges faced during commissioning and initial operation of the plant, and ways taken to mitigate the problems. This includes addressing issues of impurities, particulates, water, and in monitoring the performance of handling high pressure samples for mercury content determination, as well as fluctuation of mercury concentration in the hydrocarbon stream.A project to remove mercury from hydrocarbon was initiated by PETRONAS on a fast track basis. The intent of the project is to remove mercury from the hydrocarbon prior delivering it to the downstream customer. Since the technology in removal of mercury from raw condensate had not been commercially proven before, a thorough selection process was undertaken in selecting the appropriate technology. Adsorbent technology was selected against other technologies evaluated.The project managed to be completed ahead of time, with the first unit installed in March, 2006 some 13 months from project initiation. The results during the monitoring period proved that the unit managed to remove mercury successfully exceeding the project requirement. The data obtained from the performance monitoring of the unit was required to improve the removal efficiency and to sustain the units' long term effectiveness. It was observed that a different project management approach was needed in executing a technology project. A proper selection of technology was also vital in ensuring the success of the project.Mercury is highly toxic, particularly when present in the form of organo-mercury species. Mercury not only is hazardous to human health and the environment but could also attack equipment components that have mercury reactive material, leading to potential catastrophic failure to the plant. With the ability to remove mercury from the hydrocarbon stream effectively, danger to human and the environment can be minimised and catastrophic failure to the plants prevented. 2.0 THAILAND SINGAPORE Kertih Kuantan Kangar Ipoh Sitiawan R.O. Kuala LumpurSeremban

Development of new technology in the area of separation process is essential in order to deal with with product quality, environmental issues, energy efficiency, cost reduction and increasing safety. In membrane separation processes, membrane contactor has attained considerable attention due to the wide range of its applications. Since most of chemical separation processes are related to the contact of two different phases (liquid-liquid or gas/vapor-liquid), the operations such as gas absorption and stripping, liquid-liquid extraction, distillation, heterogeneous reactions, emulsification, demulsification, humidification and dehumidification can be conducted through a membrane contactor system (Drioli et al. 2005). Development of membrane contactor for acid gas removal is an emerging technology recently especially to overcme the disadvantages of commercial packed towers and bubble columns. Physical solvents such as DEPG (Selexol™ or Coastal AGR®), NMP or N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (Purisol®), Methanol (Rectisol®), and Propylene Carbonate (Fluor Solvent™) are well known as commercial gas treating solvents, especially for acid gas removal. Physical solvents tend to be favored over chemical solvents when the concentration of acid gases or other impurities is very high (Burr and Lyddon 2008). Among the physical solvents, Selexol shows the highest H2S solubility. However, due to Selexol solvent is less hazard as compared to NMP, this compatibility study was conducted using Selexol as the solvent for H2S removal with various types of polymeric membrane material. The main objective of the study was to test the stability of potential porous membrane material with the selected physical absorbent for H2S removal. From the physical characterization consist of physical abservation, Fe-SEM, FTIR and contact angle that have been conducted on the membranes that have been immersed in the physical absorbent for 1 month, it is found that 3 membrane materials are most stable and compatible with the selected physical absorbent. The 3 shortlisted membrane material are PTFE, PP and PEEK membrane that could be further developed for H2S removal using membrane contactor technology.