EFFECT OF CHOKING STRATEGY ON EMULSIFICATION OF LIVE CRUDE OIL AND WATER

摘要

Choking is a very important factor for the quality of crude oil in the separator outlet. The experiments performed show that a lot of droplets with diameter less than 10μm are formed in the choke valves and that these have a much larger possibility to coalesce if the oil/water dispersion is allowed to flow relatively quietly some distance in a flow line between choke and separator. In this case the resulting crude oil quality can be very good. Short flow distances between choke and separator give less coalescence and settling of water in the oil. Even worse is the case when two chokes located in series close enough are used instead of one. When dispersions made in the first choke enter the second choke, tighter dispersions are made, and the resulting water contents in the crude oil can increase with at least an order of magnitude.