Treaters & FWKO's
What is a Treater?
A three-phase Treater operates under pressure (standard design is 50 – 75 psi) and is used to separate liquids liquids and natural gas from oil. The incoming oil and water mixture (emulsion) is already very well mixed and, therefore, requires heating, gravity, coalescing and a longer retention time to separate properly. Like a separator, the Treater can measure the natural gas flow rate using a meter run and chart recorder, and measure the liquids flow rate using turbine meters and totalizers.
What is a Free Water Knockout?
FWKO’s are often used upstream of a Treater to help separate and remove excess free water from the oil-water emulsion so the energy is not wasted in heating the free water within a fired treating vessel. Standard design is 50 – 75 psi. FWKO’s can be heated or cold depending on the design requirements.
What factors determine the right type of system?
- Tightness of the emulsion
- Specific gravity of the oil and produced water
- Corrosiveness of the crude, oil, produced water and casing head gas
- Scaling tendencies of the produced water
- Quantity of fluid to be treated and percent water in the fluid
- Availability of a sales line for the casing head gas produced
- Desirable operating pressures for equipment
- Paraffin forming tendencies of the crude oil
How can Tornado assist me?
Tornado’s engineering team can provide helpful sizing advice based on your process conditions to ensure proper field performance. We will construct a certified vessel for sweet or sour service and add features to meet your specific needs. Valves and control systems are kept simple and straightforward to help reduce costs.
Tornado uses Sur-Flo control valves for backpressure control and dump systems to provide larger flow rate capacity, simplify your maintenance and provide greater reliability in the field. Access to internal coalescing is simple via a standard 24” manway with davit. The firetube is removable from the outside for easy maintenance and field inspection. Alternatively, the firetube can be deleted and relocating internal baffles allow for simple conversion to a cold free water knockout. Internal coating and external insulation are other popular options we can assist with.
Please contact Tornado for assistance with sizing, price and availability.
