shift-cost-side-23.html
DTU Olie og Gas
24 / 44
upgraded
water
treatment can prevent bottlenecks in oil
recovery the more difficult it becomes to recover oil in the north sea, the more water will be required for the process. the plants that inject water into the wells and clean the production
water of oil and chemical residues need to be upgraded. in order to maintain the pressure in an oil reservoir and to stimulate produc- tion, increasing volumes of water need to be injected into the oil-bearing, ge- ological strata so that the displaced oil can be ?swept? to the adjacent produc- tion wells. ?today, producing a single barrel of oil o?en comes along about three barrels of water. and the produced water does not bring profits. when the hydrocarbon is brought up and separated into gas, oil, and water, the production water which contains both oil residues and chemicals needs to be cleaned before it is discharged into the sea or before it can be re-injected. ?erefore, it makes sense to research how we can optimize this process,? says zhenyu yang, associate professor at the department of energy technol- ogy at aalborg university in esbjerg. at the beginning of 2016, research- ers from aalborg university start- ed working with researchers from dhrtc. ?e project is part of the ?water management? programme un- der dhrtc, and may well contribute to increased oil and gas production, but also potentially improve the qual- ity of the cleaned water which is dis- charged to the sea or re-injected into the wells. ?e issue is not urgent as such, but certainly very relevant on the plat- forms in the north sea. ?you need to remember that the in- stallations for injecting and treating the water from production date back to the 1970s. oil recovery today requires more and more water, and this means that the water treatment plants have to be able to keep pace. by increasing the amount of water which is injected, and the amount of water which is treated, you can also increase the amount of oil which is produced,? says zhenyu yang. ?e project is aiming for significant production improvements. ?e re- searchers are suggesting three solution models, and all the solutions are being tested on aalborg university?s pilot plant in esbjerg. ?e first solution is the easiest and the cheapest and does not require sig- nificant investments. it involves mod- ifying and improving the automation system so?ware which, for example, controls the opening of valves and the flow and injection of water. it is a so-called ?so?ware retrofit? solution that improves the productivi- ty of the existing water treatment plant by adjusting the control systems while leaving the mechanical design intact. ?is means minimal downtime during implementation. ?by developing a so?ware-based system that regulates the individual systems, we are eliminating the weak- nesses in the individual systems and getting them to work together as one big dynamic system. in this way, you better utilize the oil that is recovered, which increases productivity while significantly reducing the oil content in the return water,? he says. "with the new technology, we can increase production regularity and get down to zero per cent discharges," says zhenyu yang, associate professor at the depart- ment of energy technology at aalborg university in esbjerg. photo: andré ?orup, jydskevestkysten 24 dhrtc 2016
water-solution-production-25.html