Natural-gas condensate

Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natural gas will condense to a liquid state if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature at a set pressure.

The natural gas condensate is also called condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range, and is also referred to by the shortened name condy by many workers on gas installations. Raw natural gas used to create condensate may come from any type of gas well such as:^[1]^[2]

Crude oil wells: Natural gas that comes from crude oil wells is typically called associated gas. This gas could exist as a separate gas cap above the crude oil in the underground reservoir or could be dissolved in the crude oil, ultimately coming out of solution as the pressure is reduced during production. Condensate produced from oil wells is often referred to as lease condensate.^[3]
Dry gas wells: These wells typically produce only raw natural gas that contains no condensate with little to no crude oil and are called non-associated gas. Condensate from dry gas is extracted at gas processing plants and is often called plant condensate.^[3]
Condensate wells: These wells typically produce raw natural gas along with natural gas liquid with little to no crude oil and are called non-associated gas. Such raw natural gas is often referred to as wet gas.

^ International Energy Glossary (a page from the website of the Energy Information Administration)
^ Natural gas processing Archived 2011-03-04 at the Wayback Machine (a page from the website of the Energy Information Administration)
^ ^a ^b U.S. Crude Oil Production Forecast- Analysis of Crude Types (PDF), Washington, DC: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 29 May 2014, p. 7, A final point to consider involves the distinction between the very light grades of lease condensate (which are included in EIA's oil production data) and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) that are produced from the wellhead as gas but are converted to liquids when separated from methane at a natural gas processing plant. These hydrocarbons include ethane, propane, butanes, and hydrocarbons with five or more carbon atoms – referred to as pentanes plus, naptha, or plant condensate. Plant condensate can also be blended with crude oil, which would change both the distribution and total volume of oil received by refineries.

[1] International Energy Glossary (a page from the website of the Energy Information Administration)

[2] Natural gas processing Archived 2011-03-04 at the Wayback Machine (a page from the website of the Energy Information Administration)

[Crude_Types2-3] U.S. Crude Oil Production Forecast- Analysis of Crude Types (PDF), Washington, DC: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 29 May 2014, p. 7, A final point to consider involves the distinction between the very light grades of lease condensate (which are included in EIA's oil production data) and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) that are produced from the wellhead as gas but are converted to liquids when separated from methane at a natural gas processing plant. These hydrocarbons include ethane, propane, butanes, and hydrocarbons with five or more carbon atoms – referred to as pentanes plus, naptha, or plant condensate. Plant condensate can also be blended with crude oil, which would change both the distribution and total volume of oil received by refineries.

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