VWS Westgarth Sulphate Removal Packages, Water Injection and Treatment Systems
VWS Westgarth specialises in the turnkey design and build of water treatment plants for upstream oil and gas markets. We are the world leader in seawater sulphate removal packages (SRP), and also supply complete produced water treatment and wash water systems on a global basis.
A blue chip client base coupled with extensive experience of offshore engineering standards and requirements means that VWS Westgarth is very well placed to continue to develop and install market leading solutions. VWS Westgarth is a member of the VWS Oil & Gas group within Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS), the world’s largest water treatment company.
Water injection systems
Water injection is the action of injecting water into a reservoir to maintain pressure and encourage hydrocarbons to the producing well. In many situations, the most convenient fluid for injection is the produced water from the well. Injection is also a convenient method of produced water disposal. In an offshore environment, seawater is often the preferred source of injection water.
The quality of the water for injection, from whatever source, will be required to be of a standard that will not cause problems such as plugging and/or scaling of the injection equipment. This is an important issue, especially offshore, where drilling a new well is extremely expensive.
In addition, because a reservoir is effectively sterile, injecting water containing oxygen and bacteria can cause ‘souring’ of the reservoir. A ‘sour’ reservoir is one where there is the presence of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the hydrocarbons. Souring reduces the value of the produced hydrocarbons and requires expensive production equipment and materials to cope with the aggressive nature of the produced fluids. Typical contaminants that need to be removed from injection water are:
- Hydrocarbons
- Solids
- Scaling compounds such as sulphate
- Sulphate reducing bacteria
Sulphate removal systems
Sulphate removal systems work through the injection of water into the reservoir to enhance oil recovery (EOR) by maintaining the reservoir pressure and to sweep displaced oil towards the production wells. Sea water typically contains 2,650mg/l of sulphate ions. Formation water in the reservoir will contain barium from a norm of 200mg/l to a high of 2,500mg/l. This barium will react with the injected sea water sulphate ions causing barium sulphate scale.
The industry recognised solution is to remove sulphate from sea water before injection; this also helps prevent well souring by controlling sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). The "Sulphate Removal Process" was developed and patented by Marathon Oil/Dow in the late 1980s, and the technology design granted to global sub-licensees.
Produced water treatment systems
Produced water is any water that is ‘produced’ to the surface from an oil or gas reservoir along with the oil and gas. The contaminants need to be removed to enable the produced water to be re-used or disposed of. There are a number of options available for the disposal or reuse of produced water, each of which will have different water treatment criteria associated with it:
- Surface disposal into the sea, watercourse or into evaporation ponds, subject to local environmental regulations
- Injection into a disposal well, either a watered out part of the reservoir or to a disposal formation
- Reinjection for pressure maintenance, replacing sea/aquifer/river water as the source of water injection
- Reuse for irrigation or as industrial process water
Water treatment system turnkey package
VWS Westgarth engineers, procures and project manages the complete produced water treatment system including:
- Oil/water plate separators
- STREAMLINER™ de-oiling hydrocyclones
- De-sanding hydrocyclones
- Degassing plant
- Cophase™ compact flotation units (CFU)
- Macro porous polymer extraction (MPPE)
- Dual-media filters
- Ultrafiltration with ceramic membranes
- Membrane sulphate removal
- System healthcare
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VWS Westgarth, part of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by SBM Atlantia for their FPSO to be installed in the Baleia Azul field, Campos Basin, offshore Espirito Santo state, Brazil. The award is for the design, supply and deliv
Read moreVeolia Water, through its subsidiary Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS), has won a contract for the water treatment package of the Petrobras Papa Terra P63 project (offshore oil production) in the Campos Basin, offshore Brazil. The design-build contract has been awarded by
Read moreA joint venture of the sister companies VWS Westgarth and VWS Brazil of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has been awarded a contract by MODEC for a project development offshore Brazil. The award is for the supply of a sea water treatment package as a completed single-lift module, compris
Read moreVWS Oil & Gas, a division of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, was visited by the French Foreign Trade Minister at the recent Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas. Mme Anne Marie IDRAC, the French Minister of State for Foreign Trade attended the Offshore Techno
Read moreVWS Westgarth specialises in the turnkey design and build of water treatment plants for upstream oil and gas markets, specialising in sulphate removal packages, water injection systems and water treatment systems. We are exhibiting at stand 2641-A in the Reliant Centre at this year's Of
Read moreVWS Westgarth has delivered the first process package of their sulphate removal (SRP) water treatment system for the Total Block 17 Angola FPSO Pazflor. The membrane pre-filtration module was built in the Dyna-Mac fabrication yard in Singapore. This technology-leading system is the com
Read moreVSW Westgarth has released a free new white paper about its upstream oil and gas water treatment solutions. With over 110 years of designing and building water treatment and desalination plants, VWS Westgarth has an impressive track record of water treatment processes and has the ability to utili
Read moreVWS Westgarth, part of Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies, has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by MODEC Offshore Production Systems for their PSVM FPSO project for the BP Angola PSVM (Plutão, Saturno, Vênus and Marte) field development in Block 31 Angola. The award is
Read moreVWS oil and gas, the oil and gas industry water treatment specialist division of Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies, has recently launched the STREAMLINER range of deoiling hydrocyclones for produced water treatment. Many years of produced water system design, build and service exp
Read moreVWS Westgarth, a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company, has been awarded a $20m-plus contract by SBM Inc., for the Petrobras P57 deep water oil development in the Jubarte field in the Espirito Santo basin, offshore Brazil. The P57 floating production, storage and offloading
Read moreVWS Westgarth Ltd, a world leader in the supply of upstream water treatment solutions to the worldwide oil and gas industry, is pleased to announce the opening of a new office in Luanda, Angola. This new office builds upon the company’s recent successes in capturing a substantial proportion of th
Read moreVWS Westgarth, a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company, recently celebrated the completion of two projects; Saipem’s FPSO Gimboa and SBM’s FPSO Saxi-Batuque. The Gimboa module is a water injection treatment package for the FPSO Gimboa, which operates in the Block 4/05 field
Read moreOn 2 July 2008, VWS Westgarth Ltd celebrated the “load out” for their Singapore-built sulphate removal / sea water reverse osmosis membrane package for the SBM FPSO Espirito Santo. The contract, awarded in April 2007, was the fifth process package purchased by SBM from VWS Westgarth, c
Read moreVeolia Water announces that its subsidiary, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS), has been awarded a major contract by FSTP Private Limited for the Petrobras P56 deep water oil development in the Marlim Sul field in the Campos basin, offshore Brazil. The contract, worth around US$40 m
Read moreVWS Westgarth, part of Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies has been awarded a contract by Total E&P Angola in excess of US$25m for their Pazflor oil development in Block 17 deep offshore Angola. The award is for the supply of a Sulphate Reduction Process (SRP) package of capacit
Read moreVWS Westgarth, part of Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by Single Buoy Moorings Inc. (SBM) for their FPSO Espirito Santo project for the Shell BC-10 field development for location deepwater offshore Brazil. The award is for the sup
Read moreVWS Westgarth, part of Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies has been awarded two multi-million dollar contracts by the IHC Gusto / Single Buoy Moorings (SBM) partnership on their FPSO Mondo and FPSO Saxi Batuque projects for the Exxon-Mobil Kizomba C development in Block 15 Angola. T
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