US 8,540,023 B2Granted

Produced water disposal

AssigneeSingle Buoy Moorings Inc.

InventorsAdam Bernays, Antoine Le Cotty, Vincent Alary

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Abstract

Offshore hydrocarbon (e.g. oil) production units that produce considerable contaminated water (produced water), are able to repeatedly dispose of the produced water so each production unit requires only a moderate-sized tank to hold the produced water, and most of the tank storage capacity of the production unit can store hydrocarbons. A mobile water-treatment plant is provided on a converted tanker that sails from one production unit to another one, transferring produced water from the oil production units and separating out contaminants as by settling, to leave clean water that can be dumped into the sea and contaminants that cannot be dumped into the sea. The mobile plant occasionally sails to an on-shore facility where it is allowed to dump contaminants.

Claims2

Dependent claims

A method for using a plurality of production units to produce hydrocarbons from a sea floor, for efficiently storing the hydrocarbons, and for disposing of produced water that is produced with the hydrocarbons, comprising:

storing produced hydrocarbons on at least one tank of each of said production units;
storing produced water in at least one water tank (24) of each of said production units;
sailing a mobile plant (30) to each of a plurality of said production units, transferring produced water from a water tank (24) of the production unit to said mobile plant, sailing away said mobile plant (30) from the production unit while said mobile plant treats said transferred produced water to separate acceptable clean water from contaminants until the clean water can be dumped into the sea and dumping the clean water from the mobile plant into the sea, and disposing of the contaminants;
said step of disposing of contaminants comprises allowing contaminants to settle out of water while the water is in at least one tank on said mobile plant, and while the mobile plant is sailing between said production units, and dumping water into the sea from which said contaminants have been removed.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/802,079Filed 28 May 2010 · us provisional application
Priority: 17 Jul 2009
Published: US 2011/0011584 A120 Jan 2011
Granted: 24 Sep 2013
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification9 codes

E21B 41/005
Equipment or details not covered by groups E21B15/00 - E21B40/00: waste disposal systems
E21B 43/34
Methods or apparatus for obtaining oil, gas, water, soluble or meltable materials or a slurry of minerals from wells: arrangements for separating…
B63J 4/00
Arrangements of installations for treating ballast water, waste water, sewage, sludge, or
C02F 1/40
Treatment of water, waste water, or sewage: devices for separating or removing fatty or oily substances or similar floating material

Family

Application61/226,656Us provisional application · filed 17 Jul 2009
US 2011/0011584 A1Pre-grant publication · published 20 Jan 2011
US 8,540,023 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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