Traditionally separators that are used for separation purposes in oil and gas industries are often bulky in size and incur high operating costs. Latest research has led to the development of a novel and compact inline separator, which is even cost effective. This paper exhibits the efficiency of the inline separator determined for two-phase and three-phase separation in multiphase pipelines. Laboratory tests were carried out to remove sand and water using large diameter, industrial-scale test facilities. For the removal of water in oil/water pipeline, separation tests were carried out with liquid velocities ranging from 0.5 ∼ 2 m/s with 10, 50 and 90% water cuts. At first stage, effectiveness in excess of 90% was attained in each of the water cuts. In second stage separation, an effectiveness of 95% was achieved. For the removal of sand in sand/gas pipeline, gas velocities varying from 4 to 14 m/s were investigated. Here, the amount of sand collected after the separation was 99.9% of the total volume inserted into the system before separation. Separation tests for three phases, gas/liquid/sand were also carried out with string of superficial gas velocities of 4 to 10 m/s and superficial liquid velocities of 0.5 to 1.5 m/s. In this case, effectiveness of around 99% was obtained. Thus it can be concluded that the innovative, inline separation system can effectively remove sand and water and reduces or eliminates the risk of corrosion/erosion problems.
A Consistent Correlation for Three Phase Relative Permeabilities and Phase Pressures Based on Three Sets of Two Phase Data
