Downhole Oil Water Separation The Triple Action Pumping System

Downhole Oil Water Separation (DOWS) is becoming one of the key technologies of the oil industry and to reap the benefits promised by this concept, a new system has been developed to separate oil and water in the wellbore. The first test of the system - the Triple Action Pumping System (TAPS) - will be described in this article. The new system has accomplished a number of industry firsts in oil/water separation. The potential of DOWS to improve revenues, reduce expenses and investments, and protect the environment when the right conditions exist has been described in previous article. By virtue of its capability to inject at high pressure, TAPS opens the door for DOWS to provide a whole new (less costly) method of waterflooding. The successes of this test are primarily attributable to two conscious efforts: 1) commitment at all levels - from the field to management and 2) true team effort involving an operator, vendors, and government agencies. As the DOWS acronym suggests, the TAPS is capable of economically separating and injecting water downhole while producing only a fraction of the water to surface with the hydrocarbons. TAPS has extended the applicability of DOWS to "hard rock country" where high injection pressures are common. The TAPS is believed to have accomplished a number of industry firsts: -It showed that oil and water segregation occurs even when the pump is placed below the well's producing perforations. This is significant when it is important to minimize backpressure on a well. -It employed produced water recycling to achieve environmentally friendly "zero discharge". That is, any water produced to surface was dumped back down the annulus and injected so that no water hauling was necessary. This process is a closed system that reduces discharge opportunities and facilitates chemical treating. -A pseudo-permeability log4 (created using neural networks) was used to select the optimum injection interval for a DOWS application. -A water-soluble, oil-dispersible chemical was used to protect both the producing and injection zones. This treating method appears to be far more successful than previous approaches.