Journal of Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology

Abstract

Optimization of Operating Parameters of Oil Desalting in Southern Treatment Unit (HMD/Algeria)

Sellami MH*, Naam R and Temmar M

Crude oil often contains fine saline water droplets, salt crystals, suspended solids and traces of metals. To meet business requirements, the salinity of the latter is limited to 40 mg/L and (BS&W) Basic Sediment and Water must to be lower than 1%. For this reason and to prevent corrosion, plugging, and fouling of equipment, electrical desalting plants are often installed in crude oil production units. This paper presents the results of a laboratory work conducted regarding the impact of important key parameters of oil desalting, namely: the rate of wash water, oil temperature, and injected chemical demulsifier amount in aim to achieve their optimum value and thus to reach the lowest oil salinity and (BS&W) without applying electrical field. Experiments conducted in South Crud Treatment Unit laboratory (UTBS/Hassi-Messaoud/Algeria), showed that the salts removal efficiency (SRE) increases with increasing the wash water rate, demulsifier amount and operating temperature. For 5% of wash water rate and 0.5% of demulsifier at 52°C, the (SRE) was 96.94%. Applying these parameters values to electrical desalting vessel with electrical field supply, would increase the (SRE) to a remarkable extent. The mean value recorded for (BS&W) during experiments was only 0.5%.