Recent Advancements In Vessel Desanding Technology

Abstract Production of formation sand and other solids with wellstreams has been a big challenge in the petroleum industry. Presence of sand in the production stream can cause erosion of upstream facilities and - even more commonly - clogging of flowlines and accumulation in production vessels; reducing residence time and performance of separator internals. Several methods have been applied in the petroleum industry to remove deposited sand from production vessels. Some of the drawbacks with these technologies are: localized sand removal, excessive use of water, interference on vessel liquid levels, compromise of water and oil quality, risks of clogging, huge sand system infrastructural size etc. Direct consequence of these situations would be unmanageable disturbances on production operations, and eventually leading to unplanned shutdown, and production loss. Recent innovations on design of vessel desanding internals at FMC Technologies are the Dual and Single Vessel Desanding Systems. While the dual desanding system integrates a set of systematically arranged jet nozzles and a novel hydrodynamically designed suction system, the single desanding system is a unique combination of a smart elliptical fluidization technique and suction in a single compact design. This paper presents both technologies, with special focus on their developments and qualifications. Case studies are presented; highlighting the benefits of the new technologies, as well as their application possibilities. Introduction Sand and other solid particles are usually produced with oil, gas and water from most reservoirs in the world. In the United States, reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico, California and Texas tend to produce more sand. Around the world, sand production is common in West Africa, Canada, China, Venezuela Trinidad, Cameroon, Middle East, Indonesia and parts of the North Sea1. The phenomenon of sand production is directly related to any/combination of the following: unconsolidated nature of some reservoirs, high drag forces created by increased produced fluid and accelerated water influx. As explained by the illustrative schematics in figure 1, disintegrated sand particles from the formation rock matrix are transported up the wellbore, through the production system. Thus unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs would tend to produce more sand particles, especially when the wells are becoming mature, with lots more water influxing. Proppant solids are also produced from wells following fracturing treatment programs. Although downhole sand control mechanisms are usually in place in most wells, certain cut-size of sand particles would eventually get produced to the surface because wide particle size distributions always exist in the reservoir. This ranges from 1micron to over 10,000 micron. Sand particles produced to the surface leads to a wide range of operational challenges.

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