10H-1 The Lease Pumpers Handbook Chapter 10 The Tank Battery Section H TANK BATTERY DESIGN REVIEW H-1.

What Does a Tank Battery Look Like? As indicated throughout this chapter, a tank battery is designed to meet the particular needs of the hydrocarbons coming into it. Part of the production characteristics that affect the design of the tank battery include: How many barrels of oil are produced each day? This regulates the size of the tanks installed. How is the oil sold? How long is the tank unavailable due to being sold by pipe line? This helps determine how many vessels are needed. How much gas is being produced and what is the shut-in pressure? This regulates how many pressurized vessels will be required, and what pressure range the vessels may be subjected to. The amount of gas also determines whether pressurized vessels are required at all. How much water is being produced and what is the salt content? What is the gravity of the oil? Is it thin and fluid or thick and viscous when it is produced cold? How much paraffin, asphalt, or sand is being produced? How difficult is it to remove the sand, especially fine sand with paraffin? How difficult is it to treat the oil? How corrosive is the water and what other unique problems are encountered? H-2. No Atmospheric Vessels. When wells produce pipeline oil with no water or paraffin, they can be flowed directly through the separator, through a LACT unit, and into the pipeline. The tank battery in Figure 1 contains a large horizontal standard separator, a test separator, and a LACT unit. There are eleven flowing or gas lift wells and no atmospheric vessels. It also eliminates the need for the circulating pump, water disposal and injection system, and all of the problems associated with oil treating. The daily production is automatically transmitted to a computer and, if anything unusual occurs in the daily production, an alarm will be automatically recorded.

Figure 1. An 11-well tank battery that has no stock tanks due to selling the oil directly through a LACT unit. Figure 2 shows a second view of the same tank battery displaying the positive chokes located on the upper left corner of the header, the two separator lines with the

10H-2 smaller test line, and an innovative installation. An oil-saver hopper is located on the vertical line just below the positive choke. Any residue oil can be poured into the hopper and re-injected into the system by gas pressure through the 2-inch line acting as a volume tank by closing the choke valve and opening another. tank or check the lease records to determine what type of tank battery it is.

Figure 3. A single vessel tank battery. Figure 2. A close up of the header and the oil-saver hopper used on the tank battery shown in Figure 1. H-3. The Tank Battery Producing No Gas or Water. The tank battery pictured in Figure 3 shows the classic design for a one-vessel tank battery. It illustrates how simple a tank battery can be. The oil is hauled by transport. Only traces of gas are produced because none is being sold. The well does not produce any water and has a deluxe ladder and walkway installation. At the same time, it is not apparent whether the unit is an oil tank battery, a distillate (or condensate) tank battery, or a water tank battery from a gas well. A gas well that produces water but does not produce any distillate or condensate will look exactly like the pictured tank battery so that it will be necessary to read the sign on it or thief the H-4. The Tank Battery Requiring a Gun Barrel. Figure 4 illustrates a tank battery with a gun barrel, two stock tanks, and one water tank. An air tank is installed with a reel-type hose for connecting to the breather mask. The low battery walkway has ladders at both ends, and the ladder on the gun barrel is designed to permit easy analysis of this vessel. The warning gate for the gun barrel is not installed.

Figure 4. A gun barrel with two stock tanks and a water tank.

10H-3 H-5. Tank Battery with Two Heater/Treaters and Two Stock Tanks. The tank battery in Figure 5 is designed with two heater/treaters and no gun barrel. The heater/treaters are of different sizes, so the smaller one is the test vessel. Since only two tanks are on the location and the surface lines indicate that the tank battery produces water, it is easy to tell which tank is for oil tank and which is for water. In all likelihood, the crude oil being produced to this tank battery has an API gravity of 30 or less. The oil is probably relatively difficult to treat, and heat would possibly be needed all winter but not during the summer months. If the emulsion were slow to break, a gun barrel would also be needed. H-6. Single Tank with Shop-Made Gun Barrel on Stand. This method (Figure 6) is used with extremely low producing tank battery with only one well. The operation of the shopmade gun barrel is easy to trace, and the lease pumper will understand the operation of the system at a glance with no instruction.

Figure 6. A single vessel tank battery with a shop-made gun barrel and a covered pit. The single-tank does have a backpressure ounce valve on the gas line to reduce liquid loss and the resulting reduction of gravity because of this loss. Figure 5. A tank battery with two 500barrel stock tanks, two heater/treaters, and two gas sales meters. A tank battery is designed to meet the needs of each group of wells, so that each installation is somewhat unique, though well-planned tank battery vessels are installed in a specific order.

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