Oil & Gas Production

Operation - Surface Facilities

Treatment of Crude Oil

Dehydration

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Outline
† Introduction
† Surface Petroleum Operations
† Water Forms
† Factors Promoting Stability of
O/W emulsion
† Dehydrations Techniques

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Surface Petroleum Operations

† Surface oil operations for gas-oil

separation
† Further treatment of the crude oil
† Field treatment of associated
natural gas

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Surface Petroleum Operations

Gas
Treating

Well Phase Oil

Head Gathering Treating
Separation

Water
Treating

Sand
Clean & Disposal

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 Oil & Gas Production
Surface Operation - Surface Facilities
Petroleum
Operations

Wellhead

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Wet Crude Oil

† Crude oil from a GOSP may contain

very small droplets of salty water
† Many of these droplets are held in
suspension by a thin film of oil that
surrounds them
† These droplets are tightly bound.
Other droplets of water are not
surrounded by a film of oil, these are
freely suspended.
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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Dehydrating & Desalting of Wet Crude Oil

† The purpose is to remove water

and salts from oil that comes out
of the GOSPS. This oil is called
Wet Crude, because it contains too
much water and salt to meet the
following requirements:
„ Water content 0.3% wt, max.
„ Salt content 10 pounds of salt/1000
bbl oil max.
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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Dehydration of Crude Oil

† Water content < 0.2 - 0.5% by volume

† Water forms
„ Free water
„ Emulsified water
„ Dissolved water
† Water: Corrosion & scaling for the
equipment

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Water Forms

Water produced with crude oil exits under one of the following forms

Free Water Suspended Soluble Water Emulsified

(F.W.) Water (SS.W.) (S.W.) Water (E.W.)

W/O Emulsion O/W Emulsion

“Regular” “Inverse”

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Definitions of Water Forms

† Free water: Settled in 5 min.

† Suspended water: require heat - oil
viscosity
† Soluble water: lower size (Solubility)
† Emulsified water: drops - phase
„ W/O emulsion: Water drops in oil phase
„ O/W emulsion: Oil drops in Water phase

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities
Factors Promoting Stability of
O/W Emulsion

† Oil viscosity
† Density differences
† Interfacial tension
† Size of dispersed water particle
† Ratio of volumes of the two phases
† Salinity of water: salinity increase
Density

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Basic Approaches of Handling Wet

Crude Oil

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Resolution of Emulsified Oil

† Reduce the stabilization film

surrounding the water droplets
† Droplets combine together
† Gravitational settling

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Dehydrations Techniques

† Heating
† Chemical treatment
† Electrical aid

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Heating Techniques

† Mechanism: Reduce Oil

Viscosity
† Types: Direct & Indirect

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Wet Crude Heating

† Wet crude from a GOSP is heated to
60°C in two stages before water and
salts are separated.
„ The two stages are a preheating stage
and a heating stage.
„ From the preheating stage, the warm
wet crude oil passes through the shells
of a number of crude/diesel oil heat
exchanger. Hot diesel oil flow through
the heat exchanger and heats the wet
crude to 60°C.
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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

† The diesel oil is heated in a

furnace. Heating lowers the
viscosity of the wet crude. The
thinner the oil is, the less able it
is to hold water droplets in
suspension.

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Wet Crude Heaters

Hot oil
Heat Exchangers Heater Dry Crude
From Desalters

Hot Diesel

Heater
Wet Crude Wet Crude
to Desalter
From GOSP

Diesel
Oil Ret.
Dry Crude
Wet Crude Heaters

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Scale Inhibitor Injection

† Scale inhibitor is injected into the

wet crude before preheating, salt
water tends to form hard scale
deposits when it is heated. The
scale inhibitor prevents the
formation of scales in the
exchanger as the wet crude is
heated.

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Chemical Treatment Demulsifies

† Mechanism:
Mechanism
„ Absorbed to the O/W interface
„ Rupture the film

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities
Mechanism of the breaking Emulsions
(Chemical Treatment Demulsifies)

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Electrical Aid

† Mechanism: electrostatic separation

„ Di-pole attraction
„ Film is destroyed
„ Surface is expanded – ellipsoids
„ Water droplets combine, grow in size & settled
down

† Attractive with large volumes of

fluids
† Used with chemicals
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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Chem-electric Dehydrator

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Dehydration and Desalting

† Each train consists of three main vessels,

one dehydrator and two desalters. Each
vessel is identical in construction and
operation.
† The vessels remove salt water droplets
from the crude in a three stage process.
† The dehydrator receives hot wet crude
from the heat exchanger. The crude
spreads across a tray in the vessel under
the electrical grid called an electrostatic
coalescer.
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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities
Dehydration

† A high voltage, low ampere current passes through

the coalescer, the current creates a strong
electrostatic charge in the vessel, this charge
attracts the small salt water droplets in the crude,
causing them to rise and join together or coalesce to
form large drops which fall out of suspension, and
separate at the bottom of the vessel.

† The dehydrator removes only the freely suspended

water, the tightly bound droplets of salt water that
remains in the crude stream must be removed in the
first and second stage desalters.

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

Dehydrator & Desalter

Oil
Outlet

E.T. E.T. E.T.

H. VOLTAGE EI. GRID OIL

WATER

OIL IN Water Out

Inside View of Dehyd. / Desalter

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 Oil & Gas Production
Operation - Surface Facilities

End of This
Section

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