Oily-Water Treatment Strategies: an Innovative Approach for Cost-

effective Operation and Maintenance

Marco Apicella, Nunzio Bonavita♣, Paolo Capelli (ABB SpA),

Raimondo Cianfruglia (Oil and Gas Services Srl)

Keywords: Produced waters, O&G, water treatment, flocculation, flotation

Abstract: Produced water is oily wastewater that is co-produced during oil and gas
production and whose management constitutes a major challenge in
environmental terms due to its highly saline nature.
This paper introduces an innovative patented water treatment approach which has
been designed and successfully implemented on seven different water de-oiling
units in North Africa. After a brief description of the plants and the employed
technology, first operative results and benefits are presented together with
potential extensions to additional industrial applications.

1. INTRODUCTION

Oily wastewaters constitute a major environmental problem in many industries [1]. Metal,
textile, automotive, petrochemical and aeronautical industries are affected by this problem.
Conventional treatment of process effluents typically involves a combination of physical,
chemical and biological processes.

Produced water is oily wastewater that is co-produced during oil and gas production. It is
basically water trapped in underground formations that is brought to the surface along with oil
or gas. It is by far the largest volume byproduct or waste stream associated with oil and gas
production. Management of produced water presents considerable challenges and costs to
operators [2] and disposal of produced water can be problematic in environmental terms due
to its highly saline nature.
In addition to formation water, produced water from gas operations also includes condensed
water and has higher contents of low molecular-weight aromatic hydrocarbons such as
benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) than those from oil operations; hence they
are relatively more toxic than produced waters from oil production. Studies indicate that the
produced waters discharged from gas/condensate platforms are about 10 times more toxic
than the produced waters discharged from oil platforms [3].

Standard oily-wastewater remediation relied for decades on API 650 for oily-wastewater
separation (OWS) treatment using gravimetric lagoon separation, then reprocessing the
recovered floatable oil portion and using holding-pond clarification of the wastewater portion
before ‘land-farming’ discharge, with led to substantial groundwater and air pollution. OWS
certainly can’t be expected to meet the more stringent requirements of modern environmental
regulations, or be deployed for remote sites as a package treatment plant option.

♣
author to whom all correspondence should be addressed
Oily wastewaters can be generally separated into oil and aqueous phases by gravity
separation, using either the API separator, or a parallel-plate separator. The surface oil can
then be skimmed off by various devices. Air flotation can also be used for the more difficult
separations, or where better performance, or more rapid recovery is required. Chemical
additives may be used in air flotation to improve separation. Ultrafiltration is an important
technology employed to clean up the wastewater to make it suitable for discharge into a
municipal sewer and provide an oily concentrate rich enough to support combustion.

Various new configurations of separation technology have expanded oily-wastewater

treatment options; everything from hydro-cyclones to coalescing plate filters, dissolved air
flotation and even the use of ultra-filtration to separate and concentrate the individual waste
streams. While these methods offer good process response through a wide range of flows, and
can meet typical 100 mg/l total hydrocarbon cleanup regulations, they are incapable of
meeting proposed European environmental protection legislation, and also risk non-
compliance with the ATEX Directive for processes operating in explosive environments [4].

Moreover, none of these filtration methods offer the capability of treating the produced
wastewater for heavy metals, COD, nitrogen and phosphorus removal without more advanced
treatment processes, such as chemical precipitation, air stripping, chemical oxidation, or
activated carbon adsorption. Again, these advanced processes generally cannot be deployed
for remote sites as a package treatment plant option and all produce a toxic concentrate or
sludge requiring further treatment or disposal as special waste.

2. THE WATER DE-OILING PLANTS

From 2000 to 2006 ABB has studied and built in North Africa water de-oiling plants in three
different locations (see Fig. 1) for the a primary oil and gas company:
no. 3 plants in the Hassi R’Mel region (total of 3.400 m3/day)
no. 3 plants in the Haoud Berkaoui region (total of 4.800 m3/day)
no. 1 plant in the Gassi Touil region (total of 2.400 m3/day).

Construction of these seven plants has been performed by ABB in partnership with SARPI
(joint-venture ABB/Sonatrach).

After handover, the plants were operated and maintained locally until 2007 when, because of
a change in policy, it was decided to outsource the related services.
ABB and SARPI were selected to perform both operation and “full service” activities for a
period of 5 years on the following 4 water de-oiling plants:
three plants in the Hassi R’Mel region since March 2009
one plant in the Gassi Touil region since February 2009
 Hassi R’Mel

Haoud Berkaoui

Gassi Touil

Figure 1 – Plant Location

2.1 Plants Description

The three water de-oiling plants located in the Hassi R’Mel region are named “North”,
“Central” and “South” based on their relative geographical location.

The largest is the Central plant with a daily treatment capacity of 2400 m3/day, while the other
two are significantly smaller with a treatment capacity of just 500 m3/day.
The plant in Gassi Touil has the same capability of the Central plant in Hassi R’Mel and was
built in the same period (start-up in 2001) while the two smaller units had their start-up in
2006.
Both the Gassi Touil and the Hassi R’Mel Central plant have undergone a major revamping in
2008 as part of the present project, in order to improve both effectiveness and efficiency.

3. PROCESS TECHNOLOGY

Schematically it is possible to distinguish three separate treatment cycles:

a) Water treatment cycle – Water coming from existing oil & gas production plant,
which contains hydrocarbons and solid particles in suspension, is collected in a storage
tank. The water is passed through a corrugated plate interceptor (CPI) and then to a
flocculation unit, where specific chemicals (flocculant and coagulant) are added.
Water is transferred to a flotation unit and the cleaned water is passed through a filter
unit before underground injection.
b) Oil treatment cycle – Floating hydrocarbons on the surface inside the storage tank and
the CPI are recovered by oil skimmers (disc-oil) and collected in a recovered oil tank
before being sent to the Client oil production unit.
c) Mud treatment cycle – Flocs developed inside the CPI and the flocculation unit are
sent to the flotation unit. Flocs grow until they become mud, which is recovered by the
scraper inside the flotation unit and sent to the thickening machine. Mud collected at
 the bottom of storage tank, flotation unit and flocculation unit are also sent to the
thickening machine.

The water treatment process is similar for Hassi R’Mel, Gassi Touil and Haoud Berkaoui
plants and it consists of 5 main phases (see Fig. 2):
1. Storage
2. Physical separation
3. Flocculation (chemicals)
4. Flotation
5. Thickening and Dehydrating

Water coming from the existing oil & gas production plant contains hydrocarbons and solid
particles in suspension. These impurities are eliminated by using physical methods (density
difference; settling; filtering; spin-drier) and by adding specific chemical products.
In the Storage phase, water is initially stored inside storage tank S-101, where the lighter
hydrocarbons collect on the surface and are recovered by oil skimmer and sent to recovering
oil tank S-108. From the storage tank S-101, water is transferred to the Corrugated Plate
Interceptor (CPI) S-102 in order to perform the physical separation of water and
hydrocarbons. The oil floating on the surface is recovered by an oil skimmer (disc-oil) and
sent to recovering oil tank S-108. Specific flocculant is added to water inside CPI in order to
produce flocs that grow until they becoming mud, so facilitating the recovery of hydrocarbons
and solid particles.
The third phase happens into the Flocculation unit S-103 where a specific coagulant is added
to water inside S-103, in order to remove colloidal material.

From Flocculation unit S-103 water is transferred to Flotation unit S-104, where compressed
air is injected, causing very fine air bubbles to collect on the flocs and raise them to the
surface of the water. The floating solids are recovered by scraper and sent to thickening
machine S-105. The treated water then follows different paths depending on the location:
• in Gassi Touil and Haoud Berkaoui regions, treated water is transferred to an external
basin where it evaporates
• in Hassi R’Mel Region, treated water comes inside filtering unit before to be injected
under-ground.

The fifth and last phase is solid thickening and drying where collected solids from flotation
unit S-104 such as mud from storage tank S-101, from the CPI and from flocculation unit S-
103 are agglomerated and centrifuged. The centrifuged mud is stored in an external area.

Tackling water treatment in these specific cases has been particularly challenging. Authors
had to go through an extensive research and testing activity, with trials of a large number of
commercial products commonly used for oily and industrial waters, but without reaching fully
acceptable results.
However a novel stoicheiometric formulation of traditional products achieved surprisingly
good results and gave indications about the best directions to be followed. Additional
experiments resulted in the design and realization of a skid-mounted device, which is able to
automatically process and prepare the additive in the optimal doses, starting from raw
materials available also in developing regions.
Also the filtration phase has been improved because water entering into the filters is mixed
with the same additive. This way the traditional mechanical filtration is enhanced by chemical
filtration where sand grains become coated with the chemical additives.
Finally the process is flexible enough to allow further tailoring to the specific plant features
and/or needs. In our experience, the capability to understand and adapt to water and
environment peculiar challenges is no less important than the underlying technology.

FLOCCULANT COAGULANT
OILY WATER PROD. PROD.
SKID SKID

STORAGE FILTERING
TANK UNIT
CORRUGATED
FLOCCULATION FLOTATION TREATED
PLATES UNIT
INTERCEPTOR
UNIT WATER
MUD MUD
MUD

OIL OIL

RECOVERING THICKENING
OIL TANK MACHINE OUTLET DEHYDRATED MUD

OUTLET OIL

Figure 2 – Oily water Treatment Schematics

3.1 Advantages of the Innovative Implementation

The innovative approach and equipment are currently patent-pending and present the
additional advantage to be relatively cheap and potentially able to significantly remove heavy
metals through an ionic exchange-like procedure.

The water treatment process has been selected because of some striking advantages inherent
in its implementation.
In fact the proposed approach:
can be adapted to treat oily water with high salinity
is not dependent on the pH of the wastewater
is not dependent on the temperature of the wastewater
has full flexibility of flow (0% to 100% of max inlet water flow)
improves energy efficiency by minimizing the number of pumps through the
use of gravity flow.

Additionally it is characterized by a reduced footprint (it is included into an indoor area just
35 meters wide and 80 meters long), it allows to be easily managed by local operators, and it
utilizes chemicals which can be produced on site starting from easily available, cheap base
ingredients, a feature which is highly advantageous in desert areas like the ones involved in
these specific projects. It should be finally noted that, because of its design, it can be built on
skids (in factories or workshops) and then hauled to site for final installation and
commissioning.
 Figure 3 –Hangar H-101 (Hassi R’Mel)

4. OPERATIONS AND RESULTS

Gassi Touil and Hassi R’Mel Central plants were commissioned after revamping in the first
quarter of 2009.
For each water de-oiling plant, two teams have been set-up in order to assure continuous and
efficient operation:
a) Plant Operation Team composed by one Site Manager and 4 operators (2 on day shift
+ 2 on night shift)
b) Plant Maintenance Team (1 Mechanical Technician, 1 Electrical Technician, 1
Instrument Technician, 1 Helper)
c) Laboratory Technician

Operational activities include:

periodical process parameters checks (on site and in control room)
recording of process parameters values
analysis of process parameters values and trend
plant management as per trend of process parameters (i.e. opening/closing control
valves; adding/reducing chemical additives, etc.)
visual check of equipment and instruments
preliminary diagnosis of incorrect running (i.e. abnormal noise, abnormal vibration,
abnormal temperature, etc.)
chemical additives refilling
recording consumption of chemical additives
putting equipment in safety condition before starting maintenance activity
planned equipment shut-down
equipment start-up
coordination with maintenance personnel and laboratory technician
Maintenance activities are based on a detailed maintenance plan which has been prepared,
starting from equipment maintenance manuals and analysis of equipment criticality, in order
to ensure plant availability and reliability and to guarantee full compliance to health, safety
and environmental requirements.

The maintenance plan is to reduce corrective maintenance and maximize planned and
preventive maintenance activities including:
major overhauls
mechanical and static equipment inspections
instrumentation and electrical component checks
spare parts replacement
lubricating refilling
general cleaning

In order to ensure the correct operation of the water de-oiling plants, laboratory analyses are
regularly performed by a Laboratory technician who is in charge of water analysis for all the
water de-oiling plants of the same region.

In order to ensure the correct operation of the water de-oiling plants, the following quality
analyses must be carried out daily on water samples:
hydrocarbon concentration [HC]
suspended solids concentration [TSS] or turbidity
filtration degree (only for Hassi R’Mel Region)
pH (only for flocculant preparation)

After plant start-up and first operational experience, laboratory analysis provided consistently
excellent result as shown in Table 1:

Outlet Acceptable values

Units Inlet Water
Water after treatment
[HC] mg/kg 278,90 0,70 5
[TSS] mg/kg 11,05 0,34 20 (SiO2)
filtration
µm >> 5 <5 5
degree

Table 1 - Water quality results for Hassi R’Mel Center de-oiling plant

From the table it is possible to note that hydrocarbon content and suspended solid
concentration values in the outlet water are respectively 7 and 55 times smaller than the Client
contract specifications. Figures 4 and 5 show a visual evaluation of the water purification
process results.
 Fig. 4 - Water before, during and after treatment (Hassi R’Mel)

Fig. 5 - Water treated evaporation basin (Gassi Touil)

The plant uses standard equipment (pumps, motors, air compressors, etc.) and instruments
(indicators, transmitters, etc) that don’t need specific know-how or specific experience for
operators.
Operation of the water de-oiling plants is relatively simple and all the process is controlled
and regulated by a DCS located in the control room.
The plant lay-out and hydraulic profile are designed maximize the use of gravity flow and to
reduce the number of pumps.
Electrical and instrument components are ATEX. The plant is protected by a fire fighting
system (water / foam / CO2).
Plant construction and set-up took approximately two years (including 6 weeks for pre-
commissioning and commissioning).

5. POSSIBLE EXTENSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The oily-water treatment strategy and implementation described above is proving a

remarkable success in a number of respects.
1. First it has reached and exceeded performance targets in terms of quality of the treated
and released waters.
2. Secondly this performance has been obtained in reasonably short period of time and
with a clever and careful procedure and has proved to be sustainable over time.
3. Last but not least, this design is energy efficient, allowing the operator to minimize
operating costs.

Because of its inherent features, the described approach (presently patent-pending) is suitable
for the treatment of highly saline wastewaters, making it an excellent fit for the treatment of
wastewater from Oil & Gas production plants.

However the methodology promises to be easily and successfully extended to water treatment
units in such diverse environments as oil refineries and pulp and paper plants, not to mention
the potentially large market of oil production from oil sands in regions like Alberta (Canada),
where the extraction process demands huge volumes of water.

References:
[1] L.J. Zeman, A.L. Zydney – “Microfiltration and Ultrafiltration: Principles and
Applications”, 1996
[2] US Department of Energy (DOE) “A White Paper Describing Produced Water from
Production of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal Bed Methane”, W-31-109-Eng-38,
2004
[3] R.P. Jacobs, R.O.H. Grant, J. Kwant, J.M. Marqueine, and E. Mentzer, “The
Composition of Produced Water from Shell Operated Oil and Gas Production in the
North Sea,” Produced Water, J.P. Ray and F.R. Englehart (eds.), Plenum Press, New
York, 1992
[4] David Orlebeke – “Electro-Catalytic Oxidation of Oily-Wastewater Process
Streams”, 2009
http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/ask_tom_archive/electro_catalytic_oxid
ation_of_oily_wastewater_process_streams.htm