A holistic solution for compact oil treatment separation systems

The present contribution presents the main achievments of Hamworthy R&D effort in developing a holistic solution for compact separation. A main drive of this development consists in incorporating robust electrostatic coalescers into three phase separators. Our solution enables single-stage separation and accelerates separation of oil and water. The most recent product developed to enable single-stage separation is the VIEC-LW (Vessel Internal Electrostatic Coalescer - Low Water). The VIEC-LW is an electrostatic coalescer element and it is used to enhance and accelerate the separation in a three phase separator. It is designed to remove the small droplets of water remaining after bulk separation is achieved. VIEC-LW is installed downstream of the bulk speparation device, the VIEC (Vessel Internal Electrostatic Coalescer). We present the perfromane of the combination the VIEC and VIEC-LW on several different real crude oils ranging from API 17 to API 29. For the API 29 crude, the water in oil (WiO) content was reduced below 0.5% without any use of chemicals. For the challenging API 17 oil, the oil in water (OiW) was reduced to below 2-5%. All the test results yield good separation even with tough separation conditions i.e stable emulsions with extremely small droplets. The produced water leaving the separator contained 2 to 200 ppm oil in water.