SEPARATION Q: Ask the candidate to draw a three-phase separator including internals and associated Safety and control equipment.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9)

Deflector Plates/diverters & Inlet Momentum Breakers Mist Pads Coalescing Pads Straightening Vanes Weir Centrifugal Devices Horizontal baffles Vortex Breaker Water/Sand Jets

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What executive action would you expect to take place on Low low oil/water interface level on 3 phase separator? Produced water outlet v/v will shut in.

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What does either increasing or lowering the pressure in a separator do to Oil and Gas flows? Lowering the pressure will increase the gas flow and also increase the oil flow due to the higher. D.P. between the choke and the separator. Increasing the pressure will reduce both the gas and oil flows.

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What are typical chemicals you can find injected into the separation stream? Corrosion inhibitor will be injected at or as close to the wellhead as possible. (Continual injection). The process fluids have corrosive properties to the dissolved CO2, H2S in the process fluids. These contaminants make the fluids more corrosive and as the fluids enter the process pipework the systems become subject to corrosion under the correct process conditions. Scale inhibitor is injected either down-hole as part of a squeeze treatment (batch treatment) or as close to the wellhead as possible (continual injection). The produced water has scaling potential due to changes in temperature and pressure. Demulsifier is injected at the oil manifolds upstream of the separators (continual injection). This is to assist separation of the produced water from the oil in the separation train. De-oiler (reverse demulsifier) is injected (intermittently) into the produced water directly downstream of the separators. This is to gather the oil particles entrained in the produced water into larger particles to assist oil separation from the produced water. Generally there should be no requirement for de-oiler but is required on some occasions. I.e. tight emulsions. Scale inhibitor is also often injected into the process system downstream of the separation train or at intervals interstage continual injection). The requirement depends upon the type and scaling tendency expected, i.e. there may be a requirement to protect the crude coolers from scale formation due to temperature and pressure drop across the coolers. Corrosion inhibitor is also often injected into the downstream process system to protect the export pipeline from corrosion (continual injection). What effects has the heating or cooling of oil have in the separation train? Heating the oil will improve separation. Cooling the oil will impede the separation process and could lead to wax problems. What is the purpose of interlocks on PSVs and how would you expect to see them controlled? Interlocks are there to ensure that the correct PSVs are on line and that the manual block Valves are in the correct position. E.G. the offline PSV will have the upstream block valve Locked closed and the downstream block valve locked open (spec break). The system will be controlled by the interlock register. Describe the operation of an electrically driven centrifugal pump, its main parts and signs of mechanical wear and tear. This type of pump is perhaps one of the most simple elements of mechanical hardware, consisting of one rotating part, the impeller, housed in a stationary casing (the spiral casing, or volute). The sole purpose of the pump is to increase the static pressure of the liquid being transported and this is achieved by energy input via the pump drive shaft. In passing through the impeller vanes, the fluid undergoes a pressure rise, partly due to centrifugal forces, and partly due to the flow into an ever-increasing cross-sectional area. The major energy transfer, however, is manifested in a dramatic rise in the kinetic energy of the fluid at the impeller blade exits. The spiral casing serves to reconvert some of this kinetic energy into additional pressure energy. If extremely high pressures are required, then the overall compression can be conveniently carried out over a number of impeller stages. Such multistage pumps usually have a series of impellers "ganged" on to a single drive shaft, which then constitutes a reasonably compact unit. Thus, multistage machines can give us the high flow rates of the centrifugal pump, but also provide a high-pressure rise over as many stages as are required. Some reservoir water injection pumps can have as many as 27 impeller stages.

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