Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK — Adaptive Process Solutions (APS) has completed a full-scale field trial of its new Microbubble Infusion Unit (MiFU) technology over a six-month period onboard an FPSO in the North Sea.
The trial is said to have achieved a near fivefold reduction in oil in water levels in combination with a production chemical.
The operator had been having issues with produced water separation and had trialed various other solutions without success.
MiFU, designed to be retrofitted to existing water treatment systems, was adapted for the conditions and fluid chemistry at the North Sea location.
According to managing director Paul McAlister, APS developed the technology to address the problems offshore operators face in generating clean produced water to comply with regulatory standards ahead of discharge back into the sea.
“The North Sea is a mature oil and gas province, and the industry discharges millions of tons of water into the sea each year. This is exacerbated because the existing separation systems were designed to process smaller volumes of produced water resulting in a bottle neck that slows production," he added. “Our technology can also head off the challenges encountered by FPSO operators when they can no longer rely on additional ‘slop tank’ separation in heavy seas, as a fallback to meet demand. In both cases, MiFU boosts overall environmental performance and productivity.”
The system applies infused microbubbles that attach to minute particles of oil and fine solids in the produced water, which the offshore facility’s existing separator process can then remove.
Its multi-pass process directly injects size and quantity-controlled gas microbubbles into target points in a contaminated water stream.
APS claims MiFU can processing between 1,000 bbl/d and 100,000 bbl/d of watery, reducing up to 90% of oil and contaminants and eliminating the need for further downstream filtration and material management.
05.22.2024
