Dehydration and desalting

Aker Solutions supplies crude oil electrostatic dehydration and desalting systems for the efficient removal of:

• Aqueous brine and connate water
• Undesirable impurities such as water soluble salts and inorganic solids

The removal of these impurities is accomplished by Aker Solutions advanced electrostatic separation technology which subjects emulsified fluids, oil and water, to a high voltage AC electrical field. The action of the electrical field causes the emulsified droplets suspended in the oil to become polarized, coalesce into larger droplets and separate by gravity settling, effectively breaking stable emulsions.

Crude oil dehydration

Produced crude oil contains sediment and produced water (BS and W), salt and other impurities. These are readily removed from the crude oil by electrostatic coalescence. Produced water containing the solids and impurities is discharged to the effluent water treatment system. Clean, dehydrated oil to customer specifications flows from the top of the vessel. Depending on the salt specifications, a combination dehydrator followed by a Desalter may be required.

Crude oil desalting

Electrostatic desalting, whether employed for oil field production dehydration and desalting or at oil refineries, is used to facilitate the removal of inorganic chlorides and water-soluble contaminants from crude oil. In refinery applications, the removal of these water-soluble compounds takes place to prevent or minimize long term damage to downstream distillation processes.

The electrostatic desalting process consists of two important factors:

• Emulsion preparation by increasing the population density of small water droplets suspended in the crude oil via wash water injection
• Creating a uniform droplet size distribution by imparting mechanical shearing and dispersion of the dispersed aqueous phase