Compact Separation By Means Of Inline Technology

In a conventional separator separation is usually achieved by allowing the fluids to have a few minutes retention time under the influence of gravity. Separation equipment can be reduced in size by the application of a centrifugal force, which is many times gravity. The result of this is that centrifugal separators can be manufactured as a very compact unit. One step further is to fabricate the equipment according to pipeline design codes so as to avoid the complexities associated with the use of pressure vessels. Inline separators are based on cyclonic technology and can be regarded as mono-cyclones. At the moment two types of separators are available and qualified for the market. The first one is a Degasser where the aim is to separate gas from a liquid continuous flow. The second type is a Deliquidiser acting in the opposite way namely separating liquid from a continuous gas stream. Besides this, liquid/liquid inline separators are in development at the moment. Besides the compactness of these inline separators, the flexibility in terms of turndown, pressure drop and efficiency is a significant benefit compared to conventional separation equipment. The paper describes several types of newly developed inline separators and inline separator-systems. In addition the installations on Statoil Statfjord B and BP ETAP platform, along with their specific benefits and cost savings are discussed. It will be shown that inline technology can and has played a major role in the de-bottlenecking and upgrading of existing top-side facilities