This week our Guest Blogger is Jacob Jennings, the Business Development Manager at Kimray, Inc. !
Let’s talk about traffic for a minute.
In any city, cars, trucks, and buses ebb and flow, stop and start, honk and purr. City governments must use several tools to control the flow of traffic through their street—primarily driving lanes, traffic lights, and speed limits. They use predetermined parameters on these tools to guide the flow of drivers through town at what they believe to be the appropriate intervals.
This process functions relatively well, but what happens when there’s an electrical storm? The lights go down, traffic jams up, drivers get angry, and cars smash into each other. General chaos reigns until control is restored.
It’s not stretch to say that on our roads, control is crucial. But what about on a larger scale?
Planet earth is a miracle. A ridiculous, mind-bending miracle. Think about this: We are constantly spinning sideways on an axis, but we don’t fall off. In fact, we don’t even have to hold on. We walk, ride bikes, and even play basketball while we spin. And don’t worry—this invisible thing called gravity, which we can’t see but know exists, controls this.
Also, seventy per cent of earth (326 million trillion gallons) is water. That’s plenty enough to drown us all. But don’t worry—you see that that cratered ball up there, sitting some 238,000 miles away? It’s controlling the tides to keep all that water at bay.
Just as control plays a vital role in cities, the solar system, and our even own bodies, it is an essential element in the production of oil and gas. Without precise control, chaos reigns.
In the oil and gas world, one instrument central to control is the High Pressure Control Valve. These are specifically made to maintain control of a dynamic process based on the resources producers pull out of the ground. Here are just a few applications of control in the separation process:
Horizontal Separator
Below we have a diagram of a horizontal separator. On the left, the emulsion, consisting primarily of oil, water, and gas, enters the container and separates due to the differences in specific gravity of these elements. The water will settle on bottom, then the oil, then the gas.
While the gas floats up and will be pushed out the sale gas tube outlet, the oil will settle in the middle. Again, gravity causes this settling, though some chemicals may also be employed to speed up the process. The dump valve at the bottom of the picture is controlled by a liquid level controller inside the vessel. As the oil level rises, the displacer moves upward and opens the dump valve. The oil is then removed from the separator until the oil inside returns to the preset level. The same process is replicated with the water dump valve.
Vertical Heater Treater
Here we have a diagram of a vertical heater treater. Notice the two treater valves on either side of the vessel. The one on the left is a water dump treater valve. On the right is the oil dump valve.
The emulsion enters the heater treater near the top, and immediately heat, chemicals, time and gravity work together to break it up into gas, oil, and water. As the emulsion is poured into the the vessel, the agitation causes much of the gas to be released, and it then floats up to the top of the tank to be released through the mist extractor.
The emulsion then continues its descent and heat is provided by the burner in the firetube at the bottom of the treater, speeding up separation of water and oil. As the oil separates and rises to the predetermined level, the clean oil flows out of the treater, down the designated oil tube, through the oil dump valve and into a stock tank.
As the water settles on the bottom and builds up to the level predetermined by the settings in the siphon, it is the water treater dump valve pumps it out of the vessel.
Free Water Knockout
This is a Free Water Knockout (FWKO for short). The emulsion enters on the left, and as the water and oil are separated, they again begin to settle into distinct layers. The mechanical level control on the right is connected to a float on the inside of the vessel (the big ball). Outside the vessel it is connected to the water mechanical dump valve.
As the water level inside the tank raises the float to a preset level, the level control causes the dump valve to open, releasing water through the water outlet at the bottom, which is typically then moved into storage tanks and trucked off the well site.
Kimray, Inc has been perfecting the control valve for more than sixty-five years. We offer the most comprehensive range of durable, high-quality control parts in the industry. If you’re having an issue with traffic, contact the city hall. But if you need to talk control options for your oilfield, look no further. At Kimray, we make the control work.
If you are interested in becoming a guest blogger on our site, please reach out.
