Introduction to Separators

Purpose of a Separator
Separate oil, wter, and gas from a petroleum well to
measure and/or process each component individually.
Oil can sometimes be condensate.
Natural Gas Liquid: NGL
NGL condenses as gas cools as it flows up the well

Water is usually saline, but it can be fresh.

Gas is mostly methane (C1)
With some ethane (C2)
Gas and liquids can have CO2 and H2S.
These can be lethal and require special training, equipment, and
procedures.

Separators should provide sufficient residence

time for the oil, wter, and gas to separate by
density and gravity.
High density/viscosity oil can significantly
increase residence time.

Some separators have internal components to

enhance separatio:
Cyclonic inlet inserts
Coalescing plates/bafles
Foam breakers
Heaters
Mist eliminators
Sand purping equipment

Two-phase and Three-phase

Separators

problem with the TBR timer, which allows you to see how much
time has been spent in the corrected mode.

You can learn more about the detailed operation of the Series
3000 NOC by studying the NOC Supplement to the Series 3000
Installation Guide listed at the beginning of this training course or
by contacting Life Cycle Care and obtaining a NOC Training Guide.
High water cut is not the only application to avoid with two-phase
separators; very low water cut is also inappropriate.

If a client wishes to measure a liquid stream that has five percent

water cut, and the overall uncertainty of the water cut
measurement is plus or minus five percent, then our reading
could be zero percent or ten percent water cut. This is usually
unacceptable for a customer, because zero percent tells him that
he has sellable oil, and ten percent tells him that it needs more
processing before sale. If he is doing an allocation measurement
for royalty payments, then this ten-percent variability is usually
too much.

However, if a customer is simply looking for a trend in the wells

performance, and the measurement is repeatable, then this
might be acceptable. There are features in the 3000 NOC that
can help determine the densities with less uncertainty, and these