Paper: Review of OilWater Separation Equipment Use In Oil Producing Operations

Gunbarrel tanks, which are also known as wash tanks, are one of the primary pieces of equipment used to separate oil and water, in oil producing operations. To improve the hydraulics and residence time of fluid in gunbarrel tanks, they are usually outfitted with some type of internal fluid flow control system. There are numerous designs of internal fluid flow control systems. These designs include spreader pipes, spreader tables, inverted troughs, baffles, etc. An uncommonly used design, is the installation of parallel vertical baffles to achieve a serpentine shaped path of fluid flow within the tank. The serpentine style internals are simple, and are one of the more foolproof systems being used to reduce the possibility of fluids channeling or short circuiting through a gunbarrel tank separator. This paper presents: a brief discussion of the purposes of oil/water separation in oil producing operations; the factors that affect the oil/water separation process; a basic review of mechanical separator equipment used for primary and secondary oil/water separation; a review of gunbarrel tank internal designs, and the benefits and/or drawbacks of these designs; and a review of the flow performance tests on different gunbarrel tank designs.