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Sand Cleaning of separated sand has involves two “cleaning” steps. The first and most straightforward is the separation of the sand from its carrier fluid. The carrier fluid will be a mixture of jetting water, produced water and hydrocarbon. This is a conventional solid-liquid separation. The second step is the removal of any residual hydrocarbons adhering to the sand particles. The extent to which this occurs depends on whether the sand is water or oil-wetted, and also the time between jetting operations for heavier hydrocarbons to settle into the sand matrix.
The design of a sand-cleaning system is very much specific to the application in question. Key design parameters are:
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Jetting water volume; |
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Sand content; |
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Nature of the hydrocarbons; |
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Discharge requirements, (overboard, ship to shore, re-injection). |
As it is the cleaning step that represents the greater challenge, any measures that limit the adherence of oil to sand potentially greatly simplify the cleaning process. Increasing the frequency of jetting, if not continuous on-line removal, would certainly contribute to an easier cleaning process.
Our technology passes the sand bearing water through conventional Desanding Hydrocyclones which remove any free hydrocarbons from the carrier fluid by dilution with jetting water and removes adhered oil by attrition.
Solids inventory may be minimised by discharging the slurry directly through a pressure let down spool.
For difficult applications the attrition process can be supplemented with the addition of a heating step or washing agent.
All these systems can be manually operated or PLC automated.
Typical hydrocarbon content for disposal to sea is less than 1%wt in addition to a free oil concentration of 30 mg/l in the wash water discharged. In addition, some operators are now requiring a maximum size limit on discharged particles necessitating the addition of a particle size reduction step.
Cyclotech’s Sand Cleaning systems incorporate the following features which are of paramount importance to successful implementation:
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the Hydrocyclones must be able to cope with the high solids concentrations in the feed from the jetted separator; |
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the Hydrocyclones must be able to provide the required cut size to ensure no sand is returned to the process; |
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suitable sand holding capacity is provided (if batch operation is used); |
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a means of reducing wash water oil concentration is provided. |
contact us if:
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You are proposing to install a Sand Cleaning system. |
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You have problems with your sand-jetting system. |
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You are planning to install a Desanding Hydrocyclone system |
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You are planning to install a Wellhead Desanding Cyclone system |
