Design and Development of Integrated Compact Multiphase Separation System (CMSS)

Abstract

The petroleum industry has relied in the past mainly on conventional vessel-type separators, which are bulky, heavy and expensive, to process wellhead production of oil-water-gas flow. Economic and operational pressures continue to force the petroleum industry to seek less expensive and more efficient separation alternatives in the form of compact separators. The compact dimensions, smaller footprint and lower weight of compact separators have a potential for cost savings to the industry, especially in offshore and subsea applications. Also, compact separators reduce the inventory of hydrocarbons significantly, which is critical for environmental and safety considerations. This report presents a brief overview of the activities and tasks accomplished during the part July 09, 2003--October 08, 2004, related to the Budget Period I (July 09, 2003--October 08, 2004) of the DOE project titled ''Design and Development of Integrated Compact Multiphase Separation System (CMSS{copyright})''. An executive summary is presented initially followed by the tasks of the current budget period. Then, detailed description of the experimental and modeling investigations are presented. Subsequently, the technical and scientific results of the activities of this project period are presented with discussions. The findings of this investigation are summarized in the ''Conclusions'' section followed by relevant references. The initial phase of the project (Budget Period I--07/09/2003 to 10/08/2004) focuses on the development of additional individual compact separation components, such as the horizontal pipe separator (HPS{copyright}), for obtaining clean oil stream from oil-water mixture, flow conditioning components, such as the helical pipe (HP) and slug damper (SD{copyright}), for dissipating slugs upstream of the compact separators. The project will also design and test an upstream slug generator (SG).