Less Oil In, Less Oil Out - A Holistic Approach To Enhanced Produced Water Treatment

Recent demands from legislation and operators have meant that offshore platforms are now looking to further reduce their oil discharges to sea. Cyclotech suggest a holistic approach to the problem is adopted, where each stage of the treatment process is enhanced with space efficient equipment, rather than putting the majority of the treatment burden on a tertiary treatment stage. The less oil that is fed to any tertiary treatment technology, the greater the water quality achieved from it. In most cases, the equipment availability is also enhanced. At the primary stage, the PECT-U® or ultrasonic coalescer technology is still under development but shows great potential, if sited near the interface in production separators, as a means of increasing phase resolution rates, benefiting oil as well as water stream qualities. For secondary stage treatment, the PECT-F® or fibre coalescer technology has become established as a viable low cost alternative to the conventional chemical approaches for increasing oil droplet size to get the best performance out of deoiling hydrocyclones. Step changes in discharge concentrations are typical and ease of retrofit directly into the hydrocyclone vessels is a key advantage. At the tertiary treatment stage, flotation technology has been taken to a new level with the DeepSweepTM Compact Flotation Unit, where vertical orientation and tangential flow entry combine with effective control of gas bubbles to offer an efficient produced water polishing system with a small footprint