Ali Mohsin, "Basic design and simulation of oil process train in upstream facilities", Master Thesis, School of Mineral Resources Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2018
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.74011
The oil process industries are developed to produce oil at required specifications. The equipment and its arrangement on the facility vary according to the feed and product specifications and the geomorphology of the location. The production fluids from the reservoir are separated in large vessels called separators into gas, oil and water .The petroleum oil and gas are source of energy for the industries. Different types of separators are combined along with the auxiliary equipments to meet the separation requirements. The configuration of this equipment should comply with the installation/operational cost restrictions and facilitate the process operation and the transient conditions such as the ones occurred during well shutdowns. The equipment should be able to tolerate process changes such as increased water cut during water injections in the reservoir, or the formation of emulsions during workovers. These conditions should be well studied both experimentally as well as by software simulations prior to project investment. Using the Aspen HYSYS package it was possible to simulate an oil process train consisting of three reservoirs that produce to a common separation facility. The process was studied for the effects of heating, well shut down and different well flow rates. The simulation indicated the factors which affect the separation process and helped minimize the equipment and energy cost while maintaining the required process flexibility. The equipment’s components are rated and sized according to the basic design calculations for initial cost estimation. The separator internals’ performance was also included in the simulation to study the water carry over between the separators and the storage tank.