Hiltek Resource Recoverywith BioActive Services

Wellbore BioChemistry Root cause 6 of 7

Emulsions and Water Separation: Costs and the Remedy

When oil and water won’t separate, a lease pays for demulsifier and heat, risks off-spec oil and loses oil to the disposal well.

What it is and what it costs

Water in the oil, oil in the water

Separation vessels with magnified views of oil-water emulsion and rag layers
Oil + biology
What it is
Oil and water that won’t separate.
What causes it
The pumps make droplets, and fine solids, asphaltenes and slime coat them so they can’t merge.
Lifting costs: the usual fixes and why they repeat
Demulsifiers, heat and tank cleanouts, batch after batch, as long as the solids and slime keep making new emulsion.
Hidden cost
The rag layer of oil-wet solids crowds the separator and cuts the time oil and water have to separate.
Profitability
Water left in the oil can push it off spec, and oil left in the water goes down the disposal well.

What this does to a well’s life: Lifting Costs and Well Life

What poor separation costs

The cost of oil in the water

Poor separation sends saleable oil down the disposal well. Cleaner separation keeps it in the sales tank. In this example, a modest oil concentration costs about $900 a month. To count it for your lease, enter your disposal water and its oil content in the Stripper Well or Fracked Well calculator.

  • Disposal water rate500 bbl/day
  • Oil concentration750 ppmw
  • Process temperature45 °F
  • Oil gravity32 °API
  • Net oil price$70.00/bbl
  • Oil lost each month13.0 bbl
  • Monthly financial loss$910.62
Tanks, treaters and flowlines

Cleaner surface equipment starts in the wellbore

The wax, iron sulfide, slime and emulsion that build up in tank bottoms, treaters and flowlines come up the tubing. Treating the wellbore, where they start, sends less of them to the surface, so over time the equipment needs fewer cleanouts.

BioActive reports:

  • Annual tank and treater cleaningsnone in 5 years
  • Flowline breaks in one well field2 in 5 years
The remedy

What ChainBreaker does about emulsions

Biosurfactants, ChainBreaker’s main byproduct, break the films that hold oil and water droplets apart, in standard and reverse emulsions, while the microbes cut the iron sulfide and slime that feed the emulsion. BioActive reports they dramatically improve water separation and significantly reduce emulsions.

The goal is cleaner separation and lower BS&W, which you can check with bottle tests and BS&W trends before and after treatment.

Start with a Production Pilot How ChainBreaker works

Sources for this section