Produced fluid heating and separation
AssigneeAMCOL International Corporation
InventorsJason Horst, Keith Doucet
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method for heating produced fluid from a well, the heating apparatus comprising a produced fluid pathway; a heat generation system comprising a diesel engine, a heated hydraulic fluid pathway, and an engine coolant pathway; and a heat transfer system disposed between the produced fluid pathway and the heat generation system to transfer thermal energy from the heat generation system to a produced fluid contained within the produced fluid pathway.
Claims11
A method of reducing hydrocarbon content in produced water to less than 29 ppm comprising:
- providing a diesel engine;
- providing produced water that has a hydrocarbon content greater than 100 ppm and a temperature less than about 50° C.;
- channeling the produced water to a first produced fluid heat exchanger;
- heating the first produced fluid heat exchanger to a temperature in the range of 50° C. to 100° C. with a heat transfer fluid;
- circulating the heat transfer fluid within a heat transfer fluid pathway that includes a heat transfer fluid pump, a first hydraulic heat exchanger, an engine coolant heat exchanger, and the first produced fluid heat exchangers;
- circulating hydraulic fluid through a heated hydraulic fluid pathway that includes a hydraulic pump, a hydraulic heat delivery conduit, the first hydraulic heat exchanger, and a hydraulic return conduit;
- circulating engine coolant through an engine coolant pathway that includes the diesel engine, an engine heat delivery conduit, the engine coolant heat exchanger, an engine coolant return conduit, and a radiator to the diesel engine coolant heat exchanger;
- and
- channeling the produced water from the first produced fluid heat exchanger to a water treatment apparatus to separate hydrocarbons from the produced water such that processed water has a hydrocarbon content less than 50 ppm.
A method of separating hydrocarbons from a water-and-hydrocarbon containing produced fluid emulsion containing more than 29 ppm hydrocarbons comprising:
- transferring heat from a diesel engine to a heat transfer fluid;
- flowing the produced fluid emulsion and heated heat transfer fluid through a heat exchanger to transfer heat from said heated heat transfer fluid to said production fluid emulsion, in an amount sufficient to at least partially break the produced fluid emulsion;
- and
- flowing the produced fluid to a hydrocarbon/water separator to separate the hydrocarbons from the produced fluid water in an amount sufficient that the remaining produced fluid water contains less than 29 ppm hydrocarbons.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.