SPE-184459-MS

Utilization of Co-Produced Water from Oil Production: Energy Generation

Case

Ildar Akhmadullin, Louisiana State University

Copyright 2017, SPE Health, Safety, Security, Environment, & Social Responsibility Conference - North America

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Health, Safety, Security, Environment, & Social Responsibility Conference - North America held in New Orleans,
Louisiana, USA, 18–20 April 2017.

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Abstract
Co-produced water resources in oil & gas fields raise technological interest under the condition of increased
energy demand and carbon dioxide emission reduction. Primarily the development of medium and low-
temperature co-produced water resources are discussed in terms of energy production and further utilization
in the downstream facilities of petroleum industry. Addition of the Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) as a
compact binary power plant to the existing scheme allows harvesting a great portion of energy that is
usually lost as waste heat. This additional system does not interrupt the main facility streams and operational
parameters. The simple case with R134a refrigerant was numerically explored for the wide range of co-
produced water flow rates and temperatures. The results show that with the increase of water production the
power generation is increased up to 1 MW at 50,000 BWPD and 275°F water temperature. The economic
evaluation shows that the Levelized cost of electricity falls lower than 1.5 cents/kW. With using the proposed
scheme on the production facility, the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can drop up to 500lb. per operational
hour comparing with traditional gas turbine station.

Introduction
The primary focus of the petroleum industry is extraction and refining hydrocarbons. Brine is usually
produced together with oil and gas through the production well. Water was presented prior to the deposition,
accumulation, and migration of hydrocarbons in the sediment formations. Sources of produced water may be
originated from flows below the petroleum reservoir, through the reservoir, or from injected wells. Produced
water is an inevitable by-product and is considered as the largest waste stream portion associated with
hydrocarbons extraction (Guerra et al., 2011). According to Clark and Veil (2009), in average more than
9.5 bbl of water account for each barrel of oil produced in the US alone. This equals to 57.4 million bbl/
day in average for 2009 from the nearly 1 million producing oil and gas wells. This co-produced water
is very seldom considered as a power production source. However, the hot water produced to the surface
has the medium-to-low temperature at the wellhead (200-275°F), which may be utilized as a heat source
for rig equipment and crew needs. Additionally a significant percentage of the co-produced brine flows
at sufficient rate to generate power using a binary power system. Simple calculations show that at the
mentioned temperatures the thermal power reaches about 40-50 MWth per well.
2 SPE-184459-MS

The amount of water production varies by the type of petroleum reservoir and operational time.
Conventional oil reservoirs contain large volumes of water that commonly increase over time as
hydrocarbons are depleted in the production process (Guerra et al., 2011). Some reservoirs contain natural
gas dissolved in brine. This type of hydrocarbon extraction has the maximum water production on the list.
The cleaned from hydrocarbons water is injected underground, used for irrigation purposes, or discharged
to the ocean in the off-shore facilities (Guerra et al., 2011). High water cut wells are inevitably subject to
abandonment due to the economic failure of the project.
Regardless of the type of production facility, electricity is produced from generators powered by gas
turbines or by diesel engines. Nguen et al., 2009 mentioned the total electric power consumption on an off-
shore platform can be reached up to 17.98 – 23.41 MWel and distributed between gas lifting and exportation
(51-64%), seawater injection (29-37%), and gas recompression (5-10%) with 17.98 – 23.41 MWel depending
on the case. The rest is spent on electric heating in the production process and utilized for lighting, comfort
heating and auxiliary equipment for the crew. Transferring these numbers to CO2 emissions, a regular off-
shore rig can release up to 183, 403. 5 tons of carbon dioxide per year of operation by consuming about 21
tons of natural gas per hour with the assumption 20MWel power is produced.
In addition to gas turbines, the auxiliary system as Organic Rankine cycle can be used to utilize waste
heat from the co-produced water. It is safe, reliable, economic, easily maintained, sustainable, and flexible
in a variety of waste heat applications method. The ORC can satisfy some portion of the energy demand
on the petroleum facility, and by this save fuel and protect the environment from carbon dioxide emissions.
Currently there is no commercial application of co-produced hot water resource for power generation;
however, a couple of successful experiments are discussed in literature. As it is seen from Table 1, an
impressive amount of electric power can be produced.

Table 1—Successful ORC implementations in the oilfield production

Name Nominal Water Water flow Overall electricity production Source

power, kW temperature, rate, BWPD
°F

Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing 250 170 16,700 586 MWh of power from September Johnson and Simon, 2009;
Center (RMOTC) at NPR-3 (Teapot 2008 to February 2009. Johnson and Walker, 2010
Dome Oilfield)

Huabei Oilfield Company in China 400 230 18,114.66 From April to December 2011, it Xin et al., 2012
totally produced about 310 MWh
from 8 oil wells.

Pleasant Bayou (Texas) 3,130 292 20,000 A hybrid project where 37% comes Chacko et al., 1998
from geothermal energy, 49% from
gas and 14% from hydraulic energy.

This paper analyzes a method of energy generation from co-produced water for petroleum industry
demands based on the Organic Rankine cycle. The numerical examination includes thermodynamic and
economic analyses for the ORC with R134a refrigerant. The advantage of the method is that the co-produced
water is free of charge from drilling, cleaning, pumping, and disposal. These expenses are compensated
by petroleum production utility cost. As a result, the calculated electricity price is significantly lower even
than the cost of traditional geothermal energy production. Additionally, the produced energy is ecologically
clean and covers some portion of petroleum facility energy demands at the right flow rates and temperatures
and saves the environment from carbon dioxide emissions.

Energy Production from the Co-Produced Water

In general, literature mentions two main methods of energy generation from co-produced water resources:
Organic Rankine cycle and direct water (DW) cycle. When the temperature of the water after the separator
SPE-184459-MS 3

is high enough to boil and produce steam, the DW cycle is the best option. Water is extracted from the
separator and pumped to the expansion chamber as shown in Fig.1A. Additional power can be added if
needed from the flue exhaust gasses produced by a gas turbine station. The produced water steam is directed
to the turbine-generator assembly where heat energy is converted to mechanical rotation and then to electric
energy. The saturated vapor then directed to the condenser where the phase change occurs. The cooled water
can be utilized further through the traditional utilization scheme such as injection or side tracking. The DW
system can produce a huge amount of energy, however, it has some disadvantages. Using water as a working
fluid leads to increase in size of the main aggregates. As a result, the system is expensive and impossible to
implement as a compact additional equipment into petroleum facility scheme.

Figure 1—Operating principle of DW system (on the left), and ORC system (on the right).

Utilization of organic fluids in the ORC design gives several advantages. Some of them are: smaller size
turbines with fewer stages; a compact and, hence, less expensive air-cooling system; a possibility to operate
at temperatures below water freezing point, etc. The design requires a supplementary binary fluid loop
that includes heat exchanger (HE), turbine, condenser, and working fluid pump (Fig.1 B). The hot water
stream is directed to the HE right after the oil-water separator. Water leaves the HE and later continues to
flow with reduced temperature according to the petroleum facility design scheme. Lowering injected water
temperature positively affects a secondary recovery process. The binary fluid steam is created at the exit
of the HE and expanded in the turbine. The turbine-generator assembly produces electric energy. Saturated
vapor is directed into the condenser to change from vapor to liquid phase and pumped back to the HE to
complete the cycle.
According to literature (DiPippo, 2004; Kalra et al., 2012; Johnson & Walker, 2010), efficiency and
produced electric power are functions of several factors such as working fluid choice, hot water source
temperature, flow rates, and cold sink temperature. Currently several types of ORC are known. If only
a portion of working fluid is converted to vapor at the HE, the cycle is recognized as a trilateral flash
cycle. It has the lowest efficiency and requires two-phase type expander (Fig.2). This case is not a primary
concern of this project. The most practical and widely used cycle in industry is a subcritical ORC. Here,
two-phase region of the working fluid's (w.f.) phase envelope is crossed twice while heating at the HE and
cooling at the condenser. The cycle, however, offers a valuable energy production only when the gas stage
is superheated. The third cycle is named a supercritical if a secondary working fluid is compressed and
heated to temperatures higher than its critical point (Kalra et al. 2012). This cycle has the maximum possible
efficiency and power production comparing with the first two ORC types employed by the same fluid.
4 SPE-184459-MS

Figure 2—Thermodynamic cycle schemes (modified from Kalra et al. 2012).

In the last decade the commercially available refrigerants became more popular for waste heat harvesting
applications (Nalla et. al., 2004; DiPippo, 2004). One of the commonly used fluid is R134a. It is widely
applied from commercial and automobile air conditioner systems up to small size geothermal power plant,
such as Alaska Chena geothermal power station (Al-Weshahi et al., 2012). When hot water temperature
is kept in the range of 240 – 275°F and R134a is used, the cycle is defined as supercritical, which is the
most desirable type of operation. For lower water temperatures in the range of 203-240°F the cycle becomes
subcritical.

Analysis of the proposed scheme with R134a

Assumptions
• Negligible frictional losses in the ORC system.

• Steady-state conditions.

• Turbine efficiency is 80% and pump efficiency is 65%.

• Pinch point temperature at the HE and condenser is 9°F.

• Condenser coolant fluid temperature is 95°F.

• Negligible heat losses in the system (Zabek et al., 2013).

Model Constraints
The model is based on standard thermodynamic heat energy balance equations used to describe the
thermodynamic parameters of the main components in the cycle: the heat exchangers, pumps, and a turbine.
In this work hot water temperature and the mass flow rate are fixed and the w.f. and a coolant flow rate are
unknowns. The shell-and-tube type of heat exchanger is assumed at water and working fluid heat transfer
stage, as well as at the condenser. Here the w.f. flows through a set of metal tubes while hot/cold water
passes through a sealed shell surrounding them. This design is compact, efficient and commonly used in
industry (Moran et al., 2010). The w.f. temperature leaving the HE is lower than water by the assumed pinch
point temperature. Enthalpy of the w.f. is computed using NIST WebBook (webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/
fluid). The assumed turbine inlet pressure is 725.1psig (4 MPa). The parameters of w.f. stream leaving the
SPE-184459-MS 5

turbine are optimized to maximize the power output of the ORC. The turbine outlet pressure is assumed
as 145 psig (1 MPa).
The cycle would eventually enter the two-phase region with decreasing hot water temperature below
212°F. To avoid expander destruction by remaining at the gas stage, the turbine inlet pressure was decreased
down to 362.6 psig (2.5 MPa). The turbine power is calculated from the known w.f. mass flow rate and
enthalpy difference in the expander. The current model does not recognize the type of the turbine but simply
uses 80% of efficiency. The flue exhaust could be used to pre-heat water leaving the separator if the natural
gas production from the field is being flared or used for energy production by gas turbines. This way would
increase the efficiency of the ORC and net produced power (Sanyal et al., 2010).
In case of implementing air cooled condenser, the cooling system would become very cumbersome.
Another problem is the dependence of the power production from variable weather temperature conditions.
Decreasing the cold sink temperature increases the net power production (Sung et al., 2014) and vice versa.
The weather temperature fluctuations cause huge power production waving. The best way, in terms of
compactness and efficiency, is to cool the w.f. stream after the turbine stage by using shell-and-tube HE. In
off-shore case, sea water is involved into the cooling system at constant temperature 86°F (30°C). Again,
the temperature difference between the sea water inlet and the condensed w.f. outlet is assumed 9°F. The
centrifugal w.f. pump increases the refrigerant's pressure up to the turbine inlet pressure to complete the loop.

Mathematical Modelling of the System

The energy balance in the HE can be described as:
(1)
where is water mass flow rate taken from production data (Nguen et al., 2012); hw.hot; hw.cold are enthalpies
of hot and cold sides of water stream, and hw.f.hot; hw.f.cold are enthalpies of hot and cold sides of working fluid
stream. Then, neglecting nuances of HE design, the w.f. mass flow rate can be found from the Eq.1 as:

(2)

Both side enthalpies (water and w.f.) are taken from the following considerations. With steady state
condition, the heat transfer in the HE is described using log mean temperature difference ΔTlm:

(3)
where the overall heat transfer coefficient U depends on the surface structure and material properties; A is
the heat transfer area, which provides valuable information in order to define the size and cost of the heat
exchanger. The water temperature leaving the HE Tw.cold is assumed as 140°F for all cases.

(4)

The enthalpy difference of a hot water stream is a function of log-mean temperature:

(5)
The area of heat transfer in the HE is defined by:

(6)
6 SPE-184459-MS

The turbine work rate is computed from:

(7)
where the w.f. enthalpy at the turbine outlet h4 is found from the assumed turbine efficiency ηTrub.:
(8)
The produced electric power is the turbine work rate considering energy losses in the turbine,
generator and transport gear box. Assumed values are: ηgen = 0.95; ηmech. = 0.96 (Moran et al., 2010):

(9)

The w.f. pump work rate is obtained from:

(10)

where ΔPwf. is pressure difference between inlet and outlet of the pump; ρwf.cold is w.f. density at cold
temperature. Power required to discharge excessive heat into the cold sink is defined by the energy
conservation law in the ORC:

(11)

From the other side:

(12)
Using Eq.11 and 12, one can find the sea water mass flow rate to cool the system at the condenser.
The overall cycle efficiency ηORC is found from:

(13)

Economic feasibility
The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is a figure of merit used for energy production assessments. To
compute the LCOE one needs to determine two main parameters: the total capital cost of the project and
electric power produced for the whole operation period. The total capital cost of the geothermal ORC system
contains several terms: Leasing and Acquisition (LA); Royalty (R); Site Construction and Security (SCS);
Drilling and Completion (D&C); and Power Cycle installation cost (PC) (Barbier, 2000). This project is
based on the assumption of power production for the local usage in an existing petroleum facility with
already drilled and completed wells. This fact excludes us from determining of the LA, R, SCS, and D&C
costs and makes the project less expensive. Assuming that this type of power production unit would be
built for the internal company needs and no electricity would be sold to consumer, the LCOE can be simply
obtained from the known capital cost of the power unit divided by the total amount of electricity produced
during operational period (Walrawen et al., 2015):

(14)
SPE-184459-MS 7

where i is a discount rate; n is number of operation years (25 years total), CO&M is operation and maintenance
cost, which is 2.5% of the total cost Ctot (Smith, R., 2005):
(15)
(16)
where N is a number of full load hours per year, assumed of 95% from 365 days (Walrawen et al., 2015).
The total cost of this project does not include D&C, which consists up to 65 % of the capital cost of the
project (Lukawski et al., 2014). For this reason, the Ctot is expected to be significantly lower comparing with
geothermal power plant. Thus, one can exclude the discount rate correction from the calculations. Then
Eq.14 can be simplified as:

(17)

The total equipment cost C is defined as a sum of all components included into the ORC system.
(18)
The condenser cost Ccond. in dollars is defined from (Smith, 2005) and (Walrawen et al., 2015).

(19)

where Acond. is area of the condenser. The HE cost is defined with Eq.19 as well.
The turbine cost CTrub. depends on turbine power produced and is computed from (Walrawen et al., 2015)
(20)
The cost of the pump Cpump is defined from (Smith, 2005):

(21)

where base cost of the cooling pump Cbase is $9,840; base pump power Wbase is 4kW; and is pump
power (Smith, 2005). The additional sea pump cost should be evaluated using Eq.21 with pump power
requirement is defined as:
(22)
where h is hydraulic head of the pump. Assumed h = 10.0meters=32.8ft.
The obtained cost of power cycle parts is corrected for non-standard material:
(23)
where (fM.fP. + fI) for stainless steel; high working pressure conditions (fP. = 1.5), and installation expenses
(fI. = 0.6) (Smith, 2005).

Simulation procedure
The mathematical model was performed in Matlab software and the algorithm of computing desired
parameters was accomplished as follows. First the w.f. side temperatures and flow rate were found using
Eq. 1 - 4. Fig.3A shows the process on the T-S diagram as 2-3. With known log-mean temperature of the
HE and flow rates the required heat exchanger area was defined. Next, the expander inlet outlet enthalpies
8 SPE-184459-MS

were determined. The turbine electric power is computed from Eq.9. This process is illustrated as steps
3-4. The condenser parameters were determined from Eq.2-6 (process 4-1). The working fluid pump power
was defined from Eq.10 (process 1-2). Then, the efficiency of the cycle becomes clear applying Eq.13. The
economic analysis starts from defining total cost of the project by applying Eq.18, 19, 20, 21, and 23. The
LCOE becomes clear by using Eq.14.

Figure 3—Power production analysis with R134a fluid for the variety of co-produced water flow rates and
temperatures. A) Temperature-Entropy diagram; B) Electric power production in the 625-80,000 BWPD range; C)
Electric power production in the 625-10,000 BWPD range; D) Levelized cost of electricity for the BWPD range.

Validation
The proposed mathematical model was validated with existing 250 kW ORC unit utilizing heat from
underground hot spring in Chena, Alaska (Al-Weshahi et al., 2014). Table 2 shows the input data and
obtained results. For validation the input data containing hot water temperature, flow rate, working fluid
SPE-184459-MS 9

type, turbine pressure and efficiency was inserted in the simulator. The output values show very little error.
The discrepancy between the real and modelled cycles is caused by the assumption of no heat loss in the
system.

Table 2—Comparison between model results and existing unit data (Al-Weshahi et al., 2014).

Parameter, Unit Chena Alaska This Analysis data value Error, %

ORC unit value

Input data

Refrigerant R134a R134a

Heat source type Hot spring water Co-produced water

Heat source temperature inlet, °F 164 164

Hot water mass flow rate, kg/s 33.3 33.3

Turbine inlet pressure, bar 16 16

Turbine outlet pressure, bar 4.39 4.39

Turbine mechanical efficiency, % 80 80

Cooling water inlet/outlet temperature, °F 40/50 40/50

Results

Cooling water flow rate, kg/s 101 101.16 0.83

Refrigerant flow rate, kg/s 12.2 11.65 4.5

Hot side HE heat transfer, kW 2580 2630.77 1.93

Condenser heat transfer, kW 2360 2355.86 0.18

Gross power production, kW 250 263.85 5.2

Cycle efficiency 8.2 8.51 3.64

Results and discussions

The simulation was carried on the range of hot water temperatures from 275 to 195°F and turbine inlet
pressure 725.1psig as illustrated in Table 3. The last two temperature cases were defined at lower pressures
of 435.1 psig and 362.6 psig respectively to avoid two-phase region at the turbine stage. The electric power
production results are revealed in Fig. 3B, and 3C. As it is seen from the plot, the flow rate of 10,000 BWPD
is the power slope changing factor. Maximum 200 kW electric power can be reached below 10,000 BWPD,
while increase the flow rate up to 80,000 BWPD gives up to 1.6MW at the maximum temperature of 275°F.
10 SPE-184459-MS

Table 3—Input parameters to the simulator

Parameter Values

Co-produced water temperature at 275 257 239 221 203

HE inlet, °F

Co-produced water temperature at 140 140 140 140 140

HE outlet, °F

Working fluid temperature at the 266 248 230 212 195

turbine inlet,°F

Working fluid pressure at the turbine 725.1 725.1 725.1 435.1 362.6
inlet, psig

Working fluid temperature at the 104 104 104 104 104

turbine outlet, °F

Sea water temperature at the 77 77 77 77 77

condenser inlet, °F

Sea water temperature at the 154.4 131 104 118.4 116.6

condenser outlet,°F

Pressure in the separator, psig 50 50 50 50 50

Overall heat transfer coefficient, W/ 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000

m2K

Turbine efficiency, % 80 80 80 80 80

Pump efficiency, % 65 65 65 65 65

The net power production rises with increasing co-produced flow rate and temperature. Actually, the
flow rate is more valuable parameter than temperature due to wide range of change. The temperature does
not change over operational time, however, the water cut of the petroleum well increases. This fact leads
us to the interesting conclusion of transforming oil wells at the end of production to the energy production
units using ORC instead of abandoning. This conversion could provide electric power 24/7 to the neighbor
rigs instead of burning natural gas.
The cost analysis is performed in Fig. 3D. The plot demonstrates the backward relationship to the power
trend. With increasing power generation associated with co-produced water production, the LCOE drops
below 0.015$/kW at 30,000 BWPD, which is comparable with the cost of natural gas. However, even at
worst case scenario with 625 BWPD and 194 °F of hot water, the LCOE will never rise greater than 0.03$/
kW. According to the Department of Energy of the US, the minimum LCOE for 2020 prospects is as low
as 0.47$/kW.
The amount of carbon dioxide emission results are performed in the Fig.4. According to the US Energy
Information Administration data, the typical gas turbine emits about 510 lb. CO2 per 1MW hour produced
power. Basically, this plot repeats the same trend as the power chart on Fig. 3B. The maximum power value
matches the highest CO2 emission of 820lb per hour, which is not released to the atmosphere. At 10,000
BWPD flow rate and 275°F water temperature, the ORC can save about 100 lb. of carbon dioxide per hour,
which is equal to 876,000 lb. per year of operation and produce 200 kW power at 1.5 cents per kW.
SPE-184459-MS 11

Figure 4—The amount of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere comparing with gas turbine power unit.

The cycle efficiency runs in the range of 5.16 – 6.73% depending on water temperature. The co-produced
water flow rate does not affect this parameter. Fig.5 shows the ORC efficiency change with co-produced
water temperature range. The maximum efficiency of 6.73% does not match with the maximum power
production value, which is common case for ORC applications (DiPippo, 2004). To increase efficiency the
preheater can be connected as one more heat exchanger to the scheme. The discharged oil can warm up the
w.f. after the pump stage. Then, the main HE running by co-produced water rises the w.f. temperature to
the desired value (Johnson and Walker, 2010). This would reduce the size of the main HE.

Figure 5—ORC efficiency with R134a refrigerant changing with co-produced water temperature.

Future prospects and conclusions

The ORC system with R134a refrigerant was analyzed for petroleum production facility applications.
This system was modelled as an adjunct equipment to the general stream without any interruption of the
12 SPE-184459-MS

petroleum refinery processes to generate additional electric power. The cost is defined by the temperature of
the co-produced water as well as flow rate. The simple economic analysis shows LCOE less than 1.5 cents
per kW of produced power at 30,000 BWPD, which is about the same cost range with presently burning
natural gas in the gas turbine. The amount of CO2 not released to the environment may reach up to 800 lb.
per hour from a single facility.
The net power production is defined by the co-produced water temperature at the separator outlet and
its flow rate. The last term is gradually increased with operational time and reservoir depletion which
increases power production. From the other side, the volume of produced brine increases with oil recovery
at water flooding applications. This means more heat is available to fuel the ORC and more electricity can
be produced. Therefore, the ORC system should be sized with the maximum hot brine flow rate as it is
possible. With time, only the water production can be held for energy generation at the facility. This energy
can be used on other off-shore or on-shore facilities and can be a turning point of the remodeling petroleum
production facilities to the geothermal energy generation units in the future.
There are approximately 3.8 million oil and gas wells in 48 states of the US (www.eia.gov). Sooner
or later they will be abandoned due to economic reasons caused by high water content in hydrocarbon
production. As this paper shows, the co-produced water can be easily transitioned from a waste stream
to a resource practical for energy production. The exploitation and utilization of available oilfield thermal
resources not only can partially replace gas powered turbines but also provide a new path for oilfield
economic diversification and future energy production development.

Nomenclature
Heat rate
Mass flow rate
h Enthalpy
Cp Specific heat
T Temperature
Work rate
C Cost
A Area
N Number of full load hours per year
ΔP Pressure difference

Abbreviations
cond. Condenser
Trub. Turbine
Tot. Total
w.f. Working fluid
pump Pump
w Water
el. Electric
th. Thermal
lm Log-mean
HE Heat Exchanger
SPE-184459-MS 13

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