Feed already arrives. Treating, recovery and conversion decide what leaves as sales gas, NGL or product. Spec misses and trips show up after the run has moved. The plant still has to ship.
01
Preheat fouling tracked before the furnace pays for every lost degree
Estimate fouling per exchanger from temperatures and flows the CDU already records, so cleaning timing follows economics — not only the calendar.
02
Blend buffers sized to modelled uncertainty, not convention alone
Predict finished properties with stated uncertainty from your own blend certificates, so quality giveaway is measured — and quality staff still set the off-spec risk.
03
Amine circulation matched to the gas you are actually treating
Recommend the lowest solvent circulation and reboiler duty that still protect treated-gas quality and rich loading — instead of carrying worst-case margin all day.
On the train and in the control room
Processing plants lose money in two places that rarely share one screen: acid-gas and dehydration systems that drift before the spec sample fails, and NGL or product recovery that leaves value unrecovered. Most of that is already in DCS, LIMS, historians and CMMS — after the fact.
TreatingPublished industry failure reviews of hundreds of amine-system cases put corrosion, foaming, hydraulic limits and off-spec product among the recurring reasons trains lose capacity or shut down. When lean loading and contamination reconcile late, the fix is often a flush, a flare or a constrained rate.
RecoveryU.S. plants process tens of trillions of cubic feet of gas a year and extract billions of barrels of liquids. When cryo, turboexpander or fractionation setpoints stay conservative, NGPL recovery and energy use both move the wrong way.
ConversionU.S. operable refinery utilization sits near 90% in recent annual data. That leaves little spare room when a crude unit, hydrotreater or utilities upset takes capacity offline — and energy intensity rises while the unit is held conservatively.
Cutting rate to hold spec is the easy correction. It is also how the day is spent.
INSUS works from unit and utility tags, lab results, work orders and equipment logs a processing plant already keeps. If the gap is an unread regenerator alarm, a fractionation that never settled, or a clearance sheet that never joined the event, that is what we will say. Recommendations stay advisory. Existing DCS, SIS and plant controls stay in charge.
Industry figures
Four external figures, each with its source. Nothing on this page is an estimate we made up. Where we cannot cite a number, we describe the situation in words instead.
Gas processed
27.1Tcf
of natural gas processed in the United States in 2024 (27,088,079 million cubic feet) per EIA Natural Gas Annual Table 5 — the feedstock volume that treating and liquids-recovery trains must handle every year.
Liquids extracted
2.56Bbbl
total liquids extracted at U.S. natural gas processing plants in 2024 (2,563,303 thousand barrels) in the same EIA table — the NGL stream whose recovery and quality decide plant margin after treating.
NGPL production
3.66Tcf
NGPL production on a gaseous-equivalent basis in 2024 (3,658,962 million cubic feet) — up from 3,385,297 in 2023 — showing how liquids recovery continues to grow with processed volumes.
Source: U.S. EIA, Natural Gas Plant Processing / Natural Gas Annual NGPL production series
Refinery utilization
90.5%
U.S. operable refinery utilization rate in 2024 (gross input vs operable atmospheric crude distillation capacity) per EIA — a reminder that conversion units already run near capacity when an upset or energy miss takes barrels offline.
Common problems
None of these show up as a single alarm. They show up in the preheat fuel bill, the blend giveaway, and the amine flush.
Heat recovery declines across the crude preheat train without a hard alarm. The furnace burns more fuel while the question of which exchanger is responsible and when cleaning pays stays unanswered.
See: Preheat Train Fouling & Cleaning AdvisorFinished properties are confirmed hours after the blend. Convention-sized buffers protect against off-spec — and leave addressable giveaway on the table until certificates are measured.
See: Blend Quality Giveaway AdvisorFeed composition changes continuously, but solvent rate often stays sized for the difficult case. Unnecessary regeneration steam then becomes the standing cost of that insurance.
See: Amine Circulation & Regeneration AdvisorUse cases
Each is a specific starting point — this amine train, this cryo plant, this crude unit — and a next conversation if it is worth your time.
Track heat exchanger fouling in crude preheat trains and advise cleaning timing against fuel, cleaning cost and lost production. Advisory only.
See the full use case
Predict finished blend properties such as octane with stated uncertainty, so targets can sit closer to specification. Quality staff certify product. Advisory only.
See the full use case
Recommend the lowest amine solvent circulation and reboiler duty for the gas you are actually treating, while keeping treated-gas quality and rich loading within hard limits. Advisory only.
See the full use caseFAQ
A practical look at what INSUS needs, where it fits and what your team can expect.
The work that fits is the data a gas plant or process facility already produces: DCS tags, lab and LIMS results, blend certificates, work orders and equipment condition signals. Preheat fouling tracking, blend property prediction and amine circulation advice can start from records you already keep. Closed-loop amine, crude-unit or blend control is not a promise we will make on day one.
Upstream focuses on wells, artificial lift and production facilities. Midstream focuses on pipelines, compression stations and throughput between receipt and delivery. Processing focuses on treating, NGL recovery, fractionation and conversion units. Industrial Operations covers the shared plant — utilities, permit-to-work, contractor coordination and shared rotating assets.
Usually not for DCS, historians and maintenance. Most plants already have process tags, some analyzers and work-order history. Preheat fouling estimation needs sufficient temperature and flow coverage on each exchanger; exchangers without it may not be individually trackable.
No. The person who knows this train, this solvent and this feed slate stays responsible. The aim is to stop the next shift repeating the same treating or recovery drift, and to flag a developing equipment issue before it stops the plant.
No. It advises the console or engineering team. Existing DCS, SIS and safety interlocks stay in charge of the loop. Protection systems are not touched.
No. Recovery and energy depend on feed composition, equipment condition and operating practice. We will not invent a recovery or fuel-intensity target for your plant.
They are published U.S. national series — not measurements of your trains. Your DCS, lab and work orders are the numbers that matter.
Yes. One amine train, one cryo/fractionation plant, or one conversion unit is usually the practical start. Measure that, then decide whether to widen.
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