NEWS DOE backs produced water cleaning process

The U.S. Department of Energy is encouraging wide use of a produced water cleaning process tested in a Kansas oil field.

DOE, working through BDM-Oklahoma, which operates the National Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research, Bartlesville, Okla., will provide $100,000 to James E. Russell Petroleum Inc. to optimize the air flotation process and help other operators in use of the process. Russell will spend $102,000.

The process emerged in an earlier DOE-cosponsored project with Russell and the University of Kansas.

Impurities in produced water reinjected into the reservoir to enhance oil recovery can plug pores in reservoir rock and prevent water from reaching target zones. In many oil fields, water quality is a key limiting factor in the effectiveness of oil production processes.

Test program

Beginning in 1994, Russell and the University of Kansas began a project in Savonburg field near Chanute, Kan., that screened technologies for improving produced water quality. The project found the air flotation process to be the most flexible and effective.

The process bubbles air through a flotation column, so impurities can cling to the bubbles and can be removed. The technique is a modification of a process developed to clean coal and other hard minerals produced by mining. It has been used in offshore oil operations, but its cost effectiveness for onshore fields, particularly those operated by independent producers, was uncertain.

DOE said the Kansas project showed the process may be economic for many independents. And Russell said use of the technology is a major factor in potential recovery of an added 300,000 bbl of oil from Savonburg field.

What's next

Now, DOE and Russell will begin an 18 month project in which the company will:

Develop screening criteria to help other producers determine where the process can be applied.
Develop optimum design and operating guidelines for the technology.
Determine the cost of implementing critical design improvements.
Communicate the benefits of the technology and the correct application to other operators.

The original field project was funded under DOE's Reservoir Class Field Demonstration Program, an effort that has cosponsored 33 projects in U.S. oil fields that show ways producers can avoid prematurely abandoning their wells. DOE set aside a small amount of funding for follow-up efforts designed to enhance the market success of promising technologies.