Maxoil’s holistic approach to sand control in crude oil separation systems

31 Mar 2014

By Steven Tulloch, Process Consultant, and Calum MacLeod, Process Engineer at Maxoil Solutions.

Maxoil Solutions provides Production Chemistry and Specialised Process Services to the Oil and Gas Industry and are recognised as an industry-leader for providing specialist solutions to operational problems around the world. In the last fifteen years Maxoil have executed over 500 studies for 80+ customers.

Sand and solids management is a core area of the Company’s expertise: Maxoil’s experience in this field covers identification, processing, handling and mitigation of solids. Our objective is always to identify the root causes of problems which can include investigation of solids formation, organic and inorganic precipitants and corrosion by-products. The Company’s expertise provides sound and cost-effective solutions; the objective being to mitigate the impact of sand and solids production on the operation of the facilities thus maximising efficiency and minimising downtime.

Maxoil provides clients with advice and support in relation to the suitability of sand removal and cleaning technologies noting that a wide variety of systems are available including:

  • In-vessel desanding systems for removing sand accumulations from separators
  • Desanding equipment installed either upstream of production separators or as part of a produced water treatment facility.

For sand cleaning prior to offshore or onshore disposal, technologies have been developed which achieve cleanliness standards meeting world-wide legislative requirements. The specification of sand removal and cleaning systems depends on the characteristics of fluids and sand or solids present. Maxoil advises on the optimum choice of sand removal equipment for either new applications or optimising the performance of existing installed technologies.

The Company’s sand handling and cleaning expertise is demonstrated in the following example of a recently completed project:

Sand production exceeded the capacity of the existing separator desanding system, causing excessive accumulation in the crude oil separators and affecting crude oil production. The sand produced was very fine, which caused solids carry-over from the produced water desanding system to exceed the allowable specification for re-injecting the water into the reservoir. In addition, the solids loading on the desanding system was causing multiple equipment failures.

Maxoil was requested to investigate the problem and undertook a holistic review of the existing produced water treatment and sand removal facilities. The outcome of the investigation was a proposal for a revised desanding system including modifications to the installed desanding equipment. As a result of the work undertaken by Maxoil, a desanding system upgrade was developed. The proposed modifications were implemented and resulted in improvement to the desanding of the separators and reduction in the solids carry-over in the produced water.

Following-on from this work, Maxoil developed operating procedures to reflect the reconfigured equipment. This exercise was carried out both remotely from Maxoil’s offices and with close integration of the technical team at the client’s base location.

In solving solids problems, our production chemistry expertise is used to characterise solids present in production fluids, which is essential for achieving optimum selection of sand removal technology. Maxoil provides expertise in appropriate sampling and analysis techniques for solids removal and separation including particle sizing, solids mineralogy determination and other analytical techniques.

Overall, Maxoil’s solids and sand management expertise enables operators to optimise crude oil production by determining the root causes of problems and proposing optimised technical and commercial solutions.

Maxoil Solutions offers a range of specialised process and production chemistry consultancy services to the global oil and gas industry, enabling clients to achieve process performance optimization.

The Company accomplishes this by applying effective knowledge to new projects and operating assets gained from actual operations experience.

Maxoil has specialist areas of expertise in operations assurance, flow assurance, fluids separation, produced water management, sand and solids management, gas treatment and transport, chemical treatments and containments, process troubleshooting, advanced diagnostics, de-bottlenecking and technical awareness training.

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