SWIT™ Technology
The SWIT™ technology provides high-quality water in areas that are essential for increasing sweep efficiency and avoiding reservoir souring. By creating a total subsea waterflood system, increasing IOR possibilities beyond what is achievable by traditional topsides water injection systems, the SWIT Technology fills a technology gap.
The Seabox™ unit is our base disinfection and sediment settlement unit. The Seabox unit will encompass three different treatment processes. At the intake, the seawater passes through an electro chlorination grid where sodium hypochlorite is mixed into all of the passing seawater. Inside the Seabox unit, the seawater will be allowed to react with the chlorine for more than one hour. At the same time, particles larger than 15 microns will be settled out. At the outlet from the Seabox unit, a second electrochemical process producing hydroxyl radicals is used for final bacteria kill and to ‘decompose’ biological matters.
The current Seabox standard unit will treat 40 000 bpd of seawater and are operated and controlled by our proprietary control system. Other capacity units can easily be designed using our standard components. The unit has no moving parts and only the Treatment Unit of the Seabox unit needs to be replaced for maintenance at regular intervals. Typically every 4 years.
The SWIT Technology consists of different configurations, where the Seabox unit is the cornerstone for providing a fully disinfected water with the bulk part of particles removed. Combined with microfiltration and membranes, we provide completely particle-free water, sulfate reduced of sulfate free water and low salinity water. Water qualities can be adapted to the reservoir-specific needs.
Published with permission from NOV.
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Next Gen Oil Clean Up Technology
Few man made disasters are more destructive than oil spills or fuel leakages. Unfortunately, there has so far not been any reliable solution to mitigate or remedy these costly mistakes. But that can finally change with S’One Environment, our large-scale application of the revolutionary SIAAB-1 hydrocarbon neutralization biotech. Used to prevent fire and explosions in airplanes and road vehicles, the technology turns hydrocarbon-based fuels into an inert, solid-state sand like compound – in fractions of a second. S’One Environment uses this property to neutralize fuel spills in seashores, rivers, lakes or oceans, with staggering speed and efficiency: 500 liters (132 gallons) of S’One liquid can neutralize up to 50,000 liters of fuel, in about four hours and over an area of 11 km radius of water. The system is built for high portability and durability, which makes it easy to install and operate on offshore drilling platforms, oil tankers, petroleum trains, or even gas stations. The S’One stores 500 liters of SIAAB-1 liquid and provides fast delivery via a high capacity compressor and a turbine. It requires little to no maintenance, and it is fully reusable throughout the many years of its lifetime.
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Produced Water Facility at Chevron San Ardo Oil Field Features the First-Ever Installation of OPUS®
SCOPE
Chevron’s San Ardo oil field in Southern California recovers more than 10,000 barrels of heavy oil each day. The oil extraction process generates large volumes of produced water that require treatment and management, typically disposed of by deep well injection. Chevron engaged Veolia’s water treatment technology, engineering and operations experts to provide a new solution for sustainably treating the produced water. This would allow Chevron to minimize its water impact, while maximizing efficiency and significantly expanding production.
To achieve this, Veolia provided Engineer-Procure (EP) services and operates a produced water management facility at this oil field that features the first-ever installation of Veolia’s OPUS® (Optimized Pretreatment and Unique Separation) technology. In this case, Chevron San Ardo’s treated water is used in two ways – reused for steam generation, and released into aquifer recharge basins that replenish local water resources and allow Chevron to recover more oil. The reliable operations & maintenance of the plant is backed by a Veolia performance guarantee.
CHALLENGE
The process of extracting oil from the ground generates a volume of water that can range from 10 to 20 times the oil production rate. Historically, a portion of this water had been recycled and softened for reuse in steam generation, with the remainder going to local EPA class II injection wells for disposal. However the injection zone capacity is limited, which constrains full field development and daily production levels.
The raw produced water for this oil field is 200°F, and contains about 25 ppm free oil, 80 ppm TOC, 240 ppm silica, 26 ppm boron, 240 ppm hardness and 6,500 ppm Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). The project goal was to reduce the feed water TDS to less than 510 ppm and boron to less than 0.64 ppm for discharge, while achieving 75% water recovery across the treatment system and minimizing the volume of produced water requiring re-injection. For steam generation, the project goal was to reduce the feed water hardness to less than 2 ppm total hardness as CaCO3.
SOLUTION
Veolia provided Chevron with the first produced water facility in the world to use its OPUS® technology, a multiple-treatment process that removes contaminants sufficiently to meet the established requirements for discharge. The technology and services provided by Veolia enables the plant’s entire water cycle to be managed in a truly sustainable way, while simultaneously expanding oil production capacity.
Since the plant was commissioned in 2008, Veolia has operated and maintained (O&M) the facility for Chevron. Under its O&M contract, Veolia provides operations for the plant, which treats a combined 150,000 barrels of produced water daily, and oversees the facility’s maintenance according to an established performance guarantee. Additionally, Veolia provides Chevron with on-site and off-site technical and engineering support to troubleshoot issues, maintain optimal operations, prevent failures and implement processes to help maximize oil production.
RESULT
Veolia’s innovative application of its OPUS® technology – groundbreaking for produced water management – has delivered exceptional value back to Chevron San Ardo. By developing a sustainable solution that allows up to 50,000 barrels per day of produced water for surface discharge and another 75,000 barrels per day for steam generation, Chevron is minimizing its environmental impact on water-stressed California by returning water to the aquifer recharge basins. And by avoiding deep well injection, Chevron has a long-term solution for managing produced water that limits its regulatory risk and supports expanded production activities.
Thanks to Veolia’s expert operations & maintenance staff who run the facility for Chevron, the produced water is consistently treated to levels that allow for surface discharge to replenish local water resources – a critically important factor for oil field operations and their social license to operate in California. With plant operations handled by Veolia and backed by a performance guarantee, Chevron can focus on its core operation of oil production.
By partnering with Veolia, Chevron San Ardo accomplished its objective of achieving a more circular, sustainable and reliable business operation.
RPSEA Outlines Oil & Gas Research Needs for the Next Decade
The nonprofit research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) has unveiled a comprehensive 10-year plan for advancing research into sustainable oil and gas technology that aims to help cement the status of the U.S. as a leading global producer well into the future.
The wish list of research needs addresses a diverse roster of topics that ranges widely from studies on streamlining the development of offshore reservoirs to improving well recovery in shale plays and advancing environmentally sensitive practices.
“No one knows what the energy industry will look like in the next 10 years, but we do know in order to maintain our leadership position, the United States must compete on a global basis, (and) take full advantage of rapidly evolving technology and address the variety of challenges we will face,” RPSEA President Tom Williams said in a press release.
The Research & Development Plan (R&D Plan) is being released at a critical point in the history of the U.S. oil industry.
Fueled by the shale revolution and development of complex deepwater reservoirs, U.S. oil production surged to a 37-year high of 10 million barrels per day in November and output is expected to continue climbing to a fresh all-time record this year, according to the federal Environmental Information Administration.
With output pushing higher and an oil-friendly administration in the White House, the need to focus on sustainable, environmentally conscious development practices is more apparent than ever.
The R&D Plan draws heavily on input from industry stakeholders and RPSEA’s network of subject matter experts, including universities, national laboratories, as well as large and small energy producers and consumers. It also builds on the foundation of RPSEA’s successful program in the past decade working with the industry, academia, and the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
Onshore Research Needs
Included in the research needs outlined in the R&D Plan are calls for studies into the most effective strategies and technologies for developing unconventional reservoirs, such as the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia, the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas.
The report notes that the average U.S. shale well currently recovers less than 10% for oil production and 15% for gas production, making the enhancement of reservoir recovery an issue of great interest for all stakeholders. It suggests research into better reservoir characterization to improve the well design and wellbore placement to boost recovery.
As shale development increases, the R&D Plan also recommends examining of issues surrounding flowlines, pipelines, and stray gas especially in areas where population growth has occurred on top of old and sometimes abandoned flowlines that were not mapped or identified.
This need was highlighted last year by an incident in Firestone, Colorado. A home in relatively new Front Range neighborhood was destroyed in an explosion linked to an old flowline that was thought to be out of service. The accident led to two deaths and prompted state regulators to call for the inspection of wells and flowlines across the state.
“The domestic unconventional gas resource has dramatically altered the energy picture in the U.S.,” the report said. “As attention turns toward shale gas resources around the world, the technologies developed through this program and applied to the environmentally responsible development of domestic resources will keep U.S. companies and universities in the forefront of global unconventional resource development.”
The R&D Plan also included a call for documenting the impact of shale gas production on regional air and water quality, with proposed projects on environmental baseline monitoring, fugitive methane emissions and fracturing flow back water characterization.
Water management was highlighted as a universal issue, with the cost of recycling being an important factor. Though the report noted that advances are somewhat restricted by regulations, liability, risks, transportation, sourcing, and disposal. It also highlighted a need for research and better technologies to monitor and manage water disposal related to induced seismicity.
Offshore Research Needs
Offshore production research needs were also a subject of significance in the R&D plan. In recent years, several big deepwater developments have come online that pushed the technological boundaries of the industry to new limits and helped to propel production from the federal Gulf of Mexico to a record 1.7 million b/d in November, EIA data show.
Deepwater reservoirs are particularly challenging and costly to develop. They require years of advance planning and pose unique operating challenges and risks. The R&D plan recommends further research into a variety of issues associated with this output to find ways to streamline the process of bringing new wells online while minimizing environmental impacts.
“The goal of Offshore Program is to develop environmentally sensitive, cost-effective technologies to identify and develop resources in increasingly challenging conditions and ensure that the understanding of the risks associated with deepwater operations keeps pace with the technologies that industry has developed,” the R&D Plan said.
Becoming a Safety Leader
The research model RPSEA has developed includes actively engaging stakeholders across the entire community of energy producers, researchers, technology providers, regulators and environmental groups.
And while the R&D Program was primarily developed to promote the safe delivery of energy resources to U.S. citizens, any discoveries could also be extended to oil and gas production in other countries across the world.
“While the U.S. is currently a leader in terms of the development of oil and gas (in particular, the onshore unconventional shale resources), other nations are beginning to see these resources as an important component of a plan to move toward a lower-carbon, sustainable energy mix,” Williams said.
Chevron Uses Recycled Water to Boost Production at Aging California Oil Field
Chevron is using a sophisticated water treatment system to clean up produced wastewater at a Southern California oil field and using that recycled water to boost recovery from a previously idled portion of the field – demonstrating along the way that what’s good for the environment can also be good for a company’s bottom line.
The Optimized Pretreatment and Unique Separation (OPUS) system was installed at the San Ardo oil field by water treatment company Veolia a decade ago and the company continues to oversee it today. The installation is the first of its kind to use the OPUS system as part of a produced water desalination facility and the cleaned up water is either used in steam flooding operations or safely disposed of on the surface.
San Ardo is one of the most prolific fields in California. It was initially discovered in the late 1940s and has been producing for decades. State data shows that it was pumping 21,400 barrels of oil per day in 2015, earning it the designation of being California’s eighth producing oil field. Output has actually been ticking upward annually since the OPUS system was put into place, with state data showing oil output in 2015 was nearly double production of 11,400 b/d recorded in 2008.
To counter natural production declines, the aging field has been using steam flooding since the 1960s to soften the remaining oil and coax it out of the ground. During this process, large volumes of water rise to the surface that must later be treated and disposed of. In fact, for every barrel of oil produced in 2015, state data show about 15 barrels of water rose to the surface as well – or an average of 328,000 b/d of water per day.
A case study by Veolia says, “Historically, a portion of this water had been recycled and softened to provide water for steam generation, with the (rest) going to local EPA class II injection wells for disposal. However, the injection zone capacity is limited and that had constrained full field development.”
That’s where to OPUS system comes in to make up the difference and ease water constraints. OPUS cleans up about 50,000 bb/d of water that using a multiple-treatment process that takes out contaminants and removes 92% of total dissolved solids.
With the treated water clean enough for reuse, the limited capacity of the injection wells becomes is less of a limiting factor in operations. The recycled water that is not used to generate steam is clean enough to meet California’s strict effluent discharge requirements and can be released through shallow wetlands into aquifer recharge basins that replenish water resources.
Veolia says the project goal was to reduce the total dissolved solids (TDS) of the feed water to less than 6,500 parts per million (pps), and the boron to less than 0.64 ppm for discharge, while achieving 75% water recovery across the treatment system and minimizing the volume of produced water. “For steam generation, the project goal was to reduce the feed water hardness to less than 2 ppm total hardness as CaCO3,” the case study said.
The system’s daily operations are overseen by Veolia, and Veolia staff also provides onsite and offsite technical and engineering support to troubleshoot issues as they arise. In short, they are responsible for ensuring that optimal function is maintained at the site.
The team displayed noteworthy ingenuity in 2005 and 2008 when a shortage of hydrochloric acid arose after powerful hurricanes pummeled the US Gulf Coast. OPUS uses hydrochloric acid in the regeneration process of the water softeners that are a part of the system. To get around this issue ad keep operations rolling, Veolia staff came up with a different concentration that lowered the field’s reliance on hydrochloric acid.
Indeed, the OPUS system is demonstrating one of the ways that producers can use technology and ingenuity to make their operations more environmentally responsible. To read the full case study on Veolia’s San Ardo project, click here. https://www.veolianorthamerica.com/en/case-studies/san-ardo-refinery
Southern California Refinery Case Study
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