ASSIGNMENT

PRODucTION ENGINEERING 2

Student Name
Chico Horacio sambo
Farid Ramantian

Produced Oil Treatment

ID
16643

Introduction
Many oil and gas companies are facing serious

problems when

produced oil treatment . This is because of the complexity

involves

many steps before the final stage

unpredictable

each

petroleum reservoir has

deal with

of this process

, As it

. The crude oil composition is

its

specific composition

. This

assignment is fully devoted in explore all the vessels and equipment

involved in

crude oil treatment, starting with free water knock out

, heaters ,

, Gun barrel

stabilization and the mechanism in which the salt , gas and brine is removed from
oil. Even After hydration , most of the the cases the oil still unable to satisfy the
contract specifications because of the presence of brine inside .For this reason, the
article is entitled

to discuss desalting

method

and processes

to be

taken in

consideration to attain the required oil specifications.

1. Free Water Knock Out (FWKO)
Free Water Knock Out is a vertical or horizontal separators that are
mainly used to remove any free water that can cause problems such as
corrosion and formation of hydrates or tight emulsions which are
difficult to break. It can only be used on streams where the fluids exits
separately and not as emulsion. FWKO is located in the production flow
path where turbulence has been minimized. The degree of separation
achieved depends on retention time, density differential of fluid,
temperature of flowing fluids, water drop size distribution and emulsion
characteristics .FWKO usually operates at 50 psig or 345 kPa or less
due to the location of vessels in the process flow stream. To avoid
corrosion, internals should be coated or protected as it is always in
contact with salt water

Figure 1 : Shows cross section of Free Water Knock Out (FWKO)

2. Gunbarrel Tank with Gas Boot
A gun barrel tank which sometimes called wash tank is a vertical flow treater
located in an atmospheric tank.

It is the oldest machinery used in a

conventional gathering stationfor multi-well onshore oil treating and is

commonly used in heavy crude application.
Gunbarrel hasan internal gas separating chamber or called gas bootover the
top of the tank where the gas is separated and vented, which size extending
from 6 to 12 ft. A variation of a gunbarrel is a wash tank with an external gas
boot. This configuration is favored on larger tanks which is commonly in 60
000 barrel range. Gun barrel typically used to be in larger diameter than
verticalheater-treater. Most gunbarrelsare unheated even though it is viable
to provide heat by installing heating coils in the tank, heating the incoming
stream external to the tank or circulating the water to an external or jug
heater in a closed loop.

Figure 3. Shows Gun barrel Tanks with Gas Boot

3. Heaters
Heaters are the vessels used to increase the temperature of the liquid before
it enters a gunbarrel, wash tank or horizontal flow treater. There are two
types of heaters that are commonly used in upstream operations which are
indirect and direct fired heaters.
3.1
Indirect Fired Heater
Indirect heater maintains a constant temperature over a long period of
time and safer than the direct heater. when
controlled the hot spots

the amount of calcium

unlikely to happen . The heaters require

couple of hours to reach the desired temperature after they are of

active period , this is a primary disadvantage of this

Figure 3. Horizontal Indirect Fired Heater

3.2

Direct Fired Heater

equipment .

Direct heater is quick to reach the desired temperature which offer a

reasonable initial cost with efficiency of 7590%. Direct fired heater is
commonly used where fuel gas is available and high volume oil
treating is required. The hazardous characteristic

make

them less

preferable as they need special safety measures . Scale can be

generated on
transfer toward
condition that

crude

oil side

with fire tube

that

prevent heater

the emulsion oil . Heat traps in the metal wall under

turn the metal to elastic and fragile. This metal usually

allow produced oil to move into the fire box, which results in a fire. The
blaze which resulted from fire

if not extinguished, will maintained by

the new coming produced oil .

Figure 4 : Horizontal Direct Fired Heater

Degassing
Degassing is the process of removing gas from crude oil . Degassing is basically
performed to attain optimum performance of crude oil . It stabilizes crude
oil prior to any subsequent Treater ( Schlumberger , 2010 ). This is usually
done through an Electrostatic Treater or even upstream separate vessel
.The main idea of taking out the gas from oil
of oil tends to cause problem
catastrophe

the

is because the presence

for some metering system . To avoid this

degassing system

has been introduced

treatment system as one of the most important step .

to the oil

Figure 5 : Crude oil degassing

unit 2014)

Dehydration
The main concept behind this method of oil treatment is that droplet of
brine

will be excited

by any given electrical field inside of oil phase .

Thus , turn on a collision with other droplets and coalesce into larger bubble
with subsequent

separation

due to

gravity. The old

Electrostatic

Coalescers use (2) horizontal grids connected to an AC supply (progroup ,

2014). With

emulsion

move upwards by small chain to the grids. The

brine coalesces and flows downwards, whilst the clean oil leaves via the top
of the vessel. Distributors are used to ensure even plug flow up the vessel
and grids. The two grid system is widely

commonly used, But more recent

and enhanced Low Salt Treaters distributed all over the world (prosep ,
2015)

Figure 6: Dehydration system

unit

DESALTING
Deep understanding

of salt content in oil is very important for any

oil

treatment facility as it may damage the refiner equipment .For this reason
, some researchers has proposed the minimu content of

salt in oil .The

acceptable range for salt content has been specified to be

10 PTB . With

this

specified

range

between

we are not able to

dehydration process . However , with the help of desalting

1-

attain by

the problem

will be solved (progressgroup , 2014). The presence of Desalter unit is to

minimize the salt in oil . Wash water is usually injected into the crude oil
feed to the Desalter through a mixing device for brine dilution up to a level
where the acceptable salinity content can be reached by the downstream
Dehydration unit. In difficult applications this

clean dilution ( wash water )

can be reused in recycled in a 2 stage dehydration and desalting process.

(Cameron , 2010)

Figure 7 : crude oil desalter unit installation

References
1. http://www.processgroupintl.com/media/downloads/B01_Crude_Oil_Trea
tment,_rev_4-2014.pdf

2. http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/
3. http://www.oilngasseparator.info/
4. http://docslide.us/documents/4-chapter-1-crude-oil-treatingsystems.html
5. https://books.google.com.my/books?
id=Byz4BxV0StAC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=FWKO+is+usually+located
+downstream&source=bl&ots=Jxd5LpfksZ&sig=ZzAE6sTZuBMz6g9FtZ
Giy2rC3p0&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=FWKO%20is
%20usually%20located%20downstream&f=false

6. Cameron ( 2010) . NATCO ELECTRO-DYNAMIC Desalted. All products and

services ltd..
7. Natural Resources Canada NRC (May 2011), Canadian Crude Oil, Natural Gas
and Petroleum Products: Review of 2009 & Outlook to 2030 (PDF), Ottawa, ON:
Government of Canada, p. 9, ISBN 978-1-100-16436-6
8. Hyne, Norman J. (2001). Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Exploration,

Drilling, and Production. PennWell Corporation. ISBN 0-87814-823-X