Oilfield produced water accounts for 98% of all waste generated in oil and gas exploration and processing. This process water may contain up to 1000 ppm total oil and grease, which must be treated prior to discharge. A novel inorganic adsorbent was designed to have high affinity towards such organics. Lab scale evaluations of this adsorbent on production effluents obtained from an onshore site consistently yields TOG removal > 96%. This was found to be a significant improvement over the chemically assisted DAF at 74% in similar lab scale evaluations. This novel technology has the potential to provide a substancial reduction in capital and operating costs for water treatment.

Keywords:
upstream oil & gas, organic deoiler, production effluent, water sample, chloroform, oil production effluent, spe 163272, produced water discharge, peroxide, tog
Subjects:
Environment, Water use, produced water discharge and disposal
Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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