Summary ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (EMURC) recently completed a subsea technology development and qualification program that included performance testing of an inline electrocoalescer device supplied by FMC Technologies (FMC). This paper will summarize the results from these performance tests. Although heavy oil has been processed onshore successfully for many decades, processing heavy oil in deepwater, subsea, or Arctic fields is extremely challenging. One key challenge is oil/water separation, in which physical separation is constrained by the high viscosity of the crude and the narrow density difference between oil and water. Installing conventional electrostatic coalescers or dehydrators is often not economical or is impractical at remote locations. As part of ExxonMobil's subsea program, several different separation technologies have been investigated and tested that could enable development of these fields. One example of such a technology is an inline electrocoalescer device. An inline electrocoalescer device enhances the coalescence of water droplets dispersed in emulsified oils. This technology has the potential to improve the performance of the downstream oil/water separator considerably. By applying an electrical field to an oil/water mixture, the dispersed water droplets become polarized and reorient themselves in the electrical field. As these water droplets approach one another, attractive forces between the individual water droplets lead to coalescence. Larger water droplets that can be separated faster and more easily in the downstream separation equipment are formed. Such a device can be used to increase the throughput, performance, and reliability of existing oil-processing systems, while reducing the energy consumption and/or use of chemical demulsifiers. In new processing systems, either subsea or topside, deployment of such a device has the potential to significantly reduce the size and weight of the downstream separation equipment, thereby lowering the overall capital expenditure. The results presented in this paper are from performance tests that have been carried out on an inline electrocoalescer device at FMC's testing facilities in the Netherlands, with EMURC's involvement. Extensive testing was executed with both medium and heavy crude oils. The operating temperatures were varied in a range representative for subsea processing applications, where heating of the process fluids is difficult. Thus, the performance of the inline electrocoalescer device was evaluated over a range of oil viscosities. Water-in-oil concentration, flow velocity, upstream shear, and electrical-field strength were also varied to investigate their effects on the performance of the inline electrocoalescer device. The results demonstrate that the unit is able to deliver high preconditioning performance to medium- and heavy-crude-oil emulsions, provided that the appropriate process conditions and electrical settings are used.

Crude oil dehydration is one of the first, most important and challenging steps in oil production and processing. To achieve rapid and energy-optimized demulsification of water-in-oil emulsions, Saudi Aramco and TechnipFMC have jointly developed a high performance electrostatic coalescence technology. This paper discusses the performance test results of this technology. Physical separation of emulsified water from produced crude oil is challenging due to the small water droplets, presence of surfactants covering the water droplets that inhibit the otherwise natural coalescence process, as well as the high viscosity of the continuous phase and the narrow density difference between oil and water in the mixture. Conventional mechanical and thermal methods are proven for viscosity reduction and efficient separation, but they also require high capital expenditure and large footprint. Deploying conventional electrostatic coalescers for demulsification proves to be uneconomic at remote locations. Chemical methods, namely the injection of chemical demulsifiers to dissolve the above mentioned surfactants, is expensive and makes the production process highly dependent on the supply of such chemicals, which can be affected by geo-economical as well as environmental circumstances. In this paper the performance results from tests conducted jointly between TechnipFMC and Saudi Aramco using the compact high performance electrostatic coalescer (HPEC) technology are presented. The HPEC was tested successfully on an Arab Medium crude oil under different process conditions, including different temperatures, electric field strengths, and two geometrical configurations of the electrostatic cell internal features. The study results demonstrate the rapidity and effectiveness of the HPEC in destabilizing Arab Medium crude oil emulsions.

ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (EMURC) recently completed a subsea technology development and qualification program which included performance testing of an in-line electrocoalescer device supplied by FMC Technologies (FMC). This paper will summarize the results from these performance tests.Although heavy oil has been processed on-shore successfully for many decades, processing heavy oil in deepwater, subsea, or Arctic fields is extremely challenging. One key challenge is oil-water separation, in which physical separation is constrained by the high viscosity of the crude and the narrow density difference between oil and water. Installing conventional electrostatic coalescers or dehydrators is often not economical or impractical at remote locations. As part of ExxonMobil's subsea program, several different separation technologies have been investigated and tested that could enable development of these fields. One example of such a technology is FMC's InLine ElectroCoalescer (IEC).FMC has developed an innovative, compact electrostatic technology that enhances the coalescence of water droplets dispersed in emulsified oils. This technology has the potential to considerably improve the performance of the downstream oil-water separator. By applying an electrical field to an oil-water mixture, the dispersed water droplets become polarized and reorient themselves in the electrical field. As these water droplets approach one another, attractive forces between the individual water droplets lead to coalescence. Larger water droplets are formed, that can be separated faster and more easily in the downstream separation equipment. The IEC can be used to increase the throughput, performance, and reliability of existing oil processing systems while reducing the energy consumption and/or use of chemical demulsifiers. In new processing systems, either subsea or topside, deployment of the IEC has the potential to significantly reduce the size and weight of the downstream separation equipment, thereby lowering the overall capital expenditure.The results presented in this paper are from performance tests that have been carried out on the IEC at FMC's testing facilities in the Netherlands, under EMURC's supervision. Extensive testing was executed with both medium and heavy crude oils. The operating temperatures were varied in a range representative for subsea processing applications, where heating of the process fluids is difficult. Thus, the performance of the IEC was evaluated over a range of oil viscosities. Water-in-oil concentration, flow velocity, upstream shear, and electric field strength were also varied to investigate their effects on the IEC performance. The results demonstrate that the IEC is able to deliver high pre-conditioning performance to medium and heavy crude oil emulsions, given the appropriate process conditions and electrical settings are used.