Modeling and operation of oil removal and desalting oilfield brines with modular units
Conference Paper
Overview
Overview
abstract
Oilfield brine is the largest volume of waste generated by the oil and gas industry; typically produced brine volumes may easily exceed the oil production by 10 times with total dissolved solids (TDS) ranging from 1000 to over 250,000 ppm. A model that forecasts the performance of oil and salt separation techniques from produced water was developed. Organoclay PS12385 could remove > 90% total organic carbon content of produced water, provided two column configurations in series. The reverse osmosis (RO) membranes and process parameters selected could remove > 95% TDS of produced water. A combination of continuous adsorption and batch RO units was an effective system for the treatment of produced water and it provided maximum permeate recoveries. While the total volume through the parallel units might be higher than for the series configuration, using two membranes in series with a lower surface area for the second membrane than for the primary membrane might realize similar performances to a configuration in parallel at a lower capital cost. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (Dallas, TX 10/9-12/2005).
