Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – Global technology facilitator ITF is inviting proposals for new technical solutions to tackle produced water management in Middle East oil and gas fields. Up to 100% funding will be available for successful submissions.
Due to water shortage in the region, ITF says, it is important that oil companies dispose of secondary water from production safely to ensure that water supplies do not become contaminated.
ITF opened a regional office in Abu Dhabi last year, and this is the first program to emerge from the regional managers group members’ discussions.
Ryan McPherson, ITF’s regional director in the Middle East and Asia/Pacific, said: “Technology needs to become more effective in order to meet the legal requirements of the Ministry for Environment standards, and the Regional Organisation for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME).
“There is a clear need for new technologies to provide a definitive solution to the problem, and we hope to bring innovative technologies to market by acting as the honest broker between our operator and service company members and technology developers. We are working hard to build close links with technology organisations and academic institutions to encourage them to come forward with bespoke proposals for new technologies.”
The deadline for proposals is June 18. ITF’s members will look to select projects to fund by September.
Identified priorities are:
- Technologies to deal with viscosity of up to 60 cP that can achieve oil in water (OIW) specification, without degradation of polymer
- Water quality at inlet of OIW 200 ppmv, 20 mg/l Total Suspended Solids and outlet of 5 ppmv OIW and 2 mg/l TSS
- Development of produced water treatment equipment to handle high viscosity water that achieves OIW specifications required: viscosity range should be up to 60cP as higher limit with a base case up to 10 cP
- Improved techniques for detection and characterization of back produced polymer in produced water
- Improved technologies for desalination of water with back produced polymer
- Improved solutions for degradation of back produced polymer without shearing the oil in water.
The challenges in the treatment of produced water for reinjection and other applications include:
- Development of a coalescence technology to adequately treat produced water so it can be reinjected or disposed off safely to comply with local legislation. The ROPME Protocol for overboard discharge standard is 15 mg/l and the Ministry for Environment standard for disposal into the sea is 40ppmv. The aim is to reduce salinity and develop cost-effective techniques for coalescing technologies without changing cartridges frequently with a target oil in water concentration of less than 2ppm. Technologies submitted to address this challenge should be able to treat 100,000 b/d of produced water
- Alternative technologies for treatment of produced water to comply with ROPME and the Ministry of Environment standards
- Proposed technologies suitable for a range of water cut in the region 30% – 90%
- Development of techniques to ensure water content in the crude oil after separation is minimal
- Development of a system that does not use a compressor or a pump to separate gas from liquids (gas, crude, and water mixture) with the gas and crude oil returned to the flowline. This system should be automated and reliable to allow deployment in unmanned and remote locations
- Cost-effective produced treated water transportation, using alternatives to carbon steel lined pipelines
- Cost-effective treatment of high salinity produced water (salinity >50,000 mg/l) for reuse in steam generation.
6/12/2012