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Title: Recovery of Fresh Water Resources from Desalination of Brine Produced During Oil and Gas Production Operations

Abstract

Management and disposal of produced water is one of the most important problems associated with oil and gas (O&G) production. O&G production operations generate large volumes of brine water along with the petroleum resource. Currently, produced water is treated as a waste and is not available for any beneficial purposes for the communities where oil and gas is produced. Produced water contains different contaminants that must be removed before it can be used for any beneficial surface applications. Arid areas like west Texas produce large amount of oil, but, at the same time, have a shortage of potable water. A multidisciplinary team headed by researchers from Texas A&M University has spent more than six years is developing advanced membrane filtration processes for treating oil field produced brines The government-industry cooperative joint venture has been managed by the Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI). The goal of the project has been to demonstrate that treatment of oil field waste water for re-use will reduce water handling costs by 50% or greater. Our work has included (1) integrating advanced materials into existing prototype units and (2) operating short and long-term field testing with full size process trains. Testing at A&M has allowed usmore » to upgrade our existing units with improved pre-treatment oil removal techniques and new oil tolerant RO membranes. We have also been able to perform extended testing in 'field laboratories' to gather much needed extended run time data on filter salt rejection efficiency and plugging characteristics of the process train. The Program Report describes work to evaluate the technical and economical feasibility of treating produced water with a combination of different separation processes to obtain water of agricultural water quality standards. Experiments were done for the pretreatment of produced water using a new liquid-liquid centrifuge, organoclay and microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes for the removal of hydrocarbons from produced water. The results of these experiments show that hydrocarbons from produced water can be reduced from 200 ppm to below 29 ppm level. Experiments were also done to remove the dissolved solids (salts) from the pretreated produced water using desalination membranes. Produced water with up to 45,000 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS) can be treated to agricultural water quality water standards having less than 500 ppm TDS. The Report also discusses the results of field testing of various process trains to measure performance of the desalination process. Economic analysis based on field testing, including capital and operational costs, was done to predict the water treatment costs. Cost of treating produced water containing 15,000 ppm total dissolved solids and 200 ppm hydrocarbons to obtain agricultural water quality with less than 200 ppm TDS and 2 ppm hydrocarbons range between $0.5-1.5 /bbl. The contribution of fresh water resource from produced water will contribute enormously to the sustainable development of the communities where oil and gas is produced and fresh water is a scarce resource. This water can be used for many beneficial purposes such as agriculture, horticulture, rangeland and ecological restorations, and other environmental and industrial application.« less

Authors:
;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
924713
DOE Contract Number:  
FC26-03NT15427
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
02 PETROLEUM; BRINES; DESALINATION; DRINKING WATER; ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; FRESH WATER; HYDROCARBONS; JOINT VENTURES; MEMBRANES; OIL FIELDS; PRODUCTION; SEPARATION PROCESSES; SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT; TESTING; WASTE WATER; WATER; WATER QUALITY; WATER TREATMENT

Citation Formats

Burnett, David B, and Siddiqui, Mustafa. Recovery of Fresh Water Resources from Desalination of Brine Produced During Oil and Gas Production Operations. United States: N. p., 2006. Web. doi:10.2172/924713.
Burnett, David B, & Siddiqui, Mustafa. Recovery of Fresh Water Resources from Desalination of Brine Produced During Oil and Gas Production Operations. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/924713
Burnett, David B, and Siddiqui, Mustafa. 2006. "Recovery of Fresh Water Resources from Desalination of Brine Produced During Oil and Gas Production Operations". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/924713. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/924713.
@article{osti_924713,
title = {Recovery of Fresh Water Resources from Desalination of Brine Produced During Oil and Gas Production Operations},
author = {Burnett, David B and Siddiqui, Mustafa},
abstractNote = {Management and disposal of produced water is one of the most important problems associated with oil and gas (O&G) production. O&G production operations generate large volumes of brine water along with the petroleum resource. Currently, produced water is treated as a waste and is not available for any beneficial purposes for the communities where oil and gas is produced. Produced water contains different contaminants that must be removed before it can be used for any beneficial surface applications. Arid areas like west Texas produce large amount of oil, but, at the same time, have a shortage of potable water. A multidisciplinary team headed by researchers from Texas A&M University has spent more than six years is developing advanced membrane filtration processes for treating oil field produced brines The government-industry cooperative joint venture has been managed by the Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI). The goal of the project has been to demonstrate that treatment of oil field waste water for re-use will reduce water handling costs by 50% or greater. Our work has included (1) integrating advanced materials into existing prototype units and (2) operating short and long-term field testing with full size process trains. Testing at A&M has allowed us to upgrade our existing units with improved pre-treatment oil removal techniques and new oil tolerant RO membranes. We have also been able to perform extended testing in 'field laboratories' to gather much needed extended run time data on filter salt rejection efficiency and plugging characteristics of the process train. The Program Report describes work to evaluate the technical and economical feasibility of treating produced water with a combination of different separation processes to obtain water of agricultural water quality standards. Experiments were done for the pretreatment of produced water using a new liquid-liquid centrifuge, organoclay and microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes for the removal of hydrocarbons from produced water. The results of these experiments show that hydrocarbons from produced water can be reduced from 200 ppm to below 29 ppm level. Experiments were also done to remove the dissolved solids (salts) from the pretreated produced water using desalination membranes. Produced water with up to 45,000 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS) can be treated to agricultural water quality water standards having less than 500 ppm TDS. The Report also discusses the results of field testing of various process trains to measure performance of the desalination process. Economic analysis based on field testing, including capital and operational costs, was done to predict the water treatment costs. Cost of treating produced water containing 15,000 ppm total dissolved solids and 200 ppm hydrocarbons to obtain agricultural water quality with less than 200 ppm TDS and 2 ppm hydrocarbons range between $0.5-1.5 /bbl. The contribution of fresh water resource from produced water will contribute enormously to the sustainable development of the communities where oil and gas is produced and fresh water is a scarce resource. This water can be used for many beneficial purposes such as agriculture, horticulture, rangeland and ecological restorations, and other environmental and industrial application.},
doi = {10.2172/924713},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/924713}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Dec 29 00:00:00 EST 2006},
month = {Fri Dec 29 00:00:00 EST 2006}
}