Abstract
Maturing oil fields can pose a severe challenge for separation of oil and water. Increasing water production and tie in of new fields into existing infrastructure may result in separators struggling to meet performance specifications. Operational challenges are particularly experienced when the facilities are processing cold feedstock and tight emulsions. Typical solutions for overcoming separation challenges would be increasing operating temperature, injecting an increased quantity of demulsifier chemicals, or installing new larger separators. These alternatives may not be economically attractive or feasible for other reasons. The ability to successfully operate existing plants with tight and water-rich emulsions without incurring significant added operating expenditure is perceived as a major advantage.
This paper will share the results from testing on a separator operating with Flotta Gold crude oil. The oil is known to produce particularly tight emulsions at low temperatures. The ePack technology has been tested to study its capability of separating water and crude oil from tight emulsions by means of electrical forces.
The force generated by the high electrical field can break even tight emulsions, and the test results shown have proven the ability to go from very low separation efficiency without the ePack, to more than 90% water removal with the ePack turned on. Testing with residence times of up to 19 minutes without the ePack was not able to surpass the performance of a three minutes residence time with the ePack energized.
Ionic Transport Property under an Extremely High Electrical Field in a Thin Pore
