Natural gas processing plants, or fractionators, are used to purify the raw natural gas produced from underground gas fields or extracted at the surface from the fluids produced from oil wells. A fully operational plant will deliver pipeline-quality natural gas that can be used as fuel by residential, commercial and industrial consumers. Contaminants have been removed and heavier hydrocarbons have been captured for other commercial uses. For economic reasons, however, some plants may be designed to yield an intermediate product typically containing over 90% pure methane and smaller amounts of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and sometimes ethane. This can be further processed in downstream plants or used as feedstock for chemicals manufacturing.

A natural gas processing plant