Background The development of oil fields exploited for a long time is characterized by high water cut of oil, which causes a number of serious complications, such as the formation of inorganic salts on the inner surface of oil pipelines, high corrosion activity of the extracted products, and intensive emulsion formation. These complications increase the accident rate, accompanied by environmental and material damage. Attempts to reduce the corrosion rate of pipelines by applying inhibitor protection lead to surfactants concentration increase in the aqueous phase. Removal of salt deposits from tubing and oil pipelines leads to an increase in the mass of mechanical impurities present in the suspended state in the water-oil stream. As a result, electrostatic stabilization of the oil globules in water of the surfactant and the mechanical stabilization of individual oil globules in water by suspended particles occur. Aims and Objectives To examine features of shell structure of oil globule in water-oil emulsion. Results The results of the analysis of literature sources showed that the stability of the emulsions is ensured by the formation of energetically stable globules, the shell of which consists of surfactants, resins and solids, made by hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces. In the shell of globules, layer of resins and surfactants made by hydrogen bonds and oriented by mutual polarization is formed. In case of emulsion type «oil in water» formation hydrophilic ligand mole-molecules emerge on the shell surface. As the surfaces of globules have like charges, globules are repelling from each other, and electrostatic stabilization of emulsions occurs. Emulsions stability increases in course of time due to globules crushing and aging. For this emulsions stabilization mechanism there is a need of development of new methods of breaking based on the induced in the flow of emulsion directed electric field that can change the orientation of the surfactant molecules and resins in the outer shell of the globules, reduce the surface tension, the magnitude of the charge on the surface and, thus, ensure the fusion of globules colliding in a turbulent flow.