Treatment

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content. Attraction, gellation and drop out of suspended particles from a liquid.

Produced or fresh water being treated may have suspended solids, such as formation sand, rust from piping and vessels, and scale particles, or dissolved solids (various chemical ions). For most uses or disposal methods, these solids may need to be removed. It may be necessary to remove these solids to prevent wear in high-velocity areas, prevent solids from filling up vessels and piping and interfering with instruments, and comply with discharge restrictions on oil-coated solids. This page discusses appropriate removal technologies and handling of the removed material. Solid particles, because of their heavier density (compared to water) and net negative buoyant force, will settle to the bottom with a terminal velocity that can be derived from Stokes' law, as shown in Eq. 1. This equation applies strictly to creeping flow regimes in which the Reynolds number is less than unity; this is mainly concerned with spheres of very small diameter surrounded by a liquid. For very small particles, the inertial forces are much less than the viscous forces because of the low particle mass, and the particle does not enter into a turbulent settling regime. Most sedimentation basins are rectangular flumes with length-to-width ratios of 4:1 or greater to limit crossflow.

The low shear valve aims to reduce the turbulence and shear forces acting on the fluid mixture. Less emulsified fluid flow has positive impact on the separation facilities. This article describes low shear valve design principles. Various valve geometries with low shear design principles are presented. The majority of process valves can be divided into two types of applications: isolation valves and control valves.

Chemicals play an important role in the oil producing operation. They assist oil/water/gas separation, aid in fluid transport, protect treating equipment, and improve the quality of the gas, oil, and water.

Produced water typically enters the water-treatment system from a two- or three-phase separator, free-water knockout, gun barrel, heater treater, or other primary-separation-unit process. This water contains small concentrations (100 to 2000 mg/L) of dispersed hydrocarbons in the form of oil droplets. Because the water flows from this equipment through dump valves, control valves, chokes, or pumps, the oil-particle diameters will be very small ( 100 μm). Treatment equipment to remove dispersed oil from water relies on one or more of the following principles: gravity separation (often with the addition of coalescing devices), gas flotation, cyclonic separation, filtration, and centrifuge separation. In applying these concepts, one must keep in mind the dispersion of large oil droplets to smaller ones and the coalescence of small droplets into larger ones, which takes place if energy is added to the system. The amount of energy added per unit time and the way in which it is added will determine whether dispersion or coalescence will take place. Stokes' law, shown in Eq. 4.1, is valid for the buoyant rise velocity of an oil droplet in a water-continuous phase. Several immediate conclusions can be drawn from this equation. The third conclusion requires further elaboration. Heat is the primary mechanism in oil-treating equipment to remove small water droplets from oil. The addition of heat significantly reduces oil viscosity, which prompts more rapid settling, and heat destabilizes water-in-oil emulsions. Heat is not commonly used in water treating because the percentage change in viscosity per degree of temperature change is much less in water than in oil. Water-in-oil emulsions tend to have a higher percentage of the dispersed phase than the oil-in-water emulsions; the dispersed phase tends to have larger-diameter droplets stabilized by heat-sensitive emulsifiers, and it takes twice as much heat input to raise a barrel of water as it takes to raise a barrel of oil to the same temperature. Small oil droplets contained in the water-continuous phase are subject to the competing forces of dispersion and coalescence. An oil droplet will break apart when kinetic-energy input is sufficient to overcome the surface energy between the single droplet and the two smaller droplets formed from it. At the same time that this process occurs, the motion and collision of oil particles cause coalescence to take place.

Produced water typically enters the water-treatment system from either a two or three phase separator, a free water knockout, a gun barrel, a heater treater, or other primary separation unit process. It probably includes small amounts of free or dissolved hydrocarbons and solids that must be removed before the water can be re-used, injected or discharged. The level of removal (particularly for hydrocarbons) and disposal options are typically specified by state, province, or national regulations. This article discusses techniques for the removal of free and dissolved hydrocarbons. See Removing solids from water for information on solids removal. Produced water contains small concentrations (100 to 2000 mg/L) of dispersed hydrocarbons in the form of oil droplets. In applying these concepts, one must keep in mind the dispersion of large oil droplets to smaller ones and the coalescence of small droplets into larger ones, which takes place if energy is added to the system. The amount of energy added per unit time and the way in which it is added will determine whether dispersion or coalescence will take place. Stokes' law, shown in Eq. 1, is valid for the buoyant rise velocity of an oil droplet in a water-continuous phase. Several immediate conclusions can be drawn from this equation.

Subsystems consist of power supplies, insulators, electrodes, liquid distribution systems, instrumentation and safety systems, solids removal systems, mixing devices, level controllers and gauges; as well as, water in oil detectors. Transformers used in dehydrator and desalter power supplies must be capable of sustaining a short-circuited output without damage or overheating. This protection normally is derived by including a saturable core reactor sized commensurately to the reactance of the transformer winding in series with the primary winding of the transformer. Transformers in this service also experience high mechanical stresses from rapidly fluctuating loads and must be constructed with cores and windings that are mechanically solid and highly resistant to vibration. A weakness of electrostatic coalescers has been their means of protecting the electrical system in the event of excessive power requirements during short-term upsets. Unfortunately, the reactor-based protection scheme described above effectively reduces power input to the vessel precisely when it is most needed. To counteract this, an electronic controller was developed that can sense the load demand and modify the power input to the transformer.

In many operations worldwide, surface waters are injected into producing formations to enhance oil recovery. The types of surface waters used range from seawater (salt water) to lake water (brackish) to river water (fresh water).

Solids are almost always present in an oil, gas, and water-producing stream. Unfortunately, the solids are usually ignored until the problems caused by the solids become so onerous that action is required. This article discusses the impact of suspended solids in produced water. In some cases, the reservoir sands are known to be unconsolidated, and sand control is part of the project development. However, even if sand control is successful, fine solids will still be produced and end up in the produced water system.

While formation damage is typically a problem affecting the productivity of well, it can also pose problems for injection. Understanding the causes of this type of formation damage is important so that efforts to prevent it can be undertaken. This page discusses the types of formation damage that affect injection wells. In such projects, the cost of piping and pumping the water is determined primarily by reservoir depth and the source of the water. However, water treatment costs can vary substantially, depending on the water quality required.