Reinjection

Reinjection of coproduced groundwater through the use of wells is commonly used to return the water to the same aquifer and to set up hydraulic barriers in an effort to contain the plume. Injection wells are commonly used in conjunction with withdrawal systems to enhance the recovery of hydrocarbons. Injecting water at appropriate locations will create a pressure ridge to increase the hydraulic gradient effectively toward the withdrawal point. Normally, the water pumped from the recovery wells is used as the injection water and is injected, without treatment. This method provides an economical way of handling the produced water, as well as being beneficial to the recovery effort. 

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When water is produced along with oil, the separation of water from oil invariably leaves some water in the oil. The current oil-in-water emission limit into the sea is commonly 40 ppm. Oily water disposal occurs on processing platforms, some drilling platforms, and at oil terminals. The quality of water disposed from terminals remains an area of scrutiny, especially since the terminals are often near to local habitation and leisure resorts. If the engineer can find a means of reducing the produced water at source (e.g. water shut-off or reinjection of produced water into reservoirs) then the surface handling problem is much reduced. 

Gas is produced to surface separators which are used to extract the heavier ends of the mixture (typically the components). The dry gas is then compressed and reinjected into the reservoir to maintain the pressure above the dew point. As the recycling progresses the reservoir composition becomes leaner (less heavy components), until eventually it is not economic to separate and compress the dry gas, at which point the reservoir pressure is blown down as for a wet gas reservoir. The sales profile for a recycling scheme consists of early sales of condensate liquids and delayed sale of gas. An alternative method of keeping the reservoir above the dew point but avoiding the deferred gas sales is by water injection. 

Natural gas cap drive may be supplemented by reinjection of produced gas, with the possible addition of make-up gas from an external source. The gas injection well would be located in the crest of the structure, injecting into the existing gas cap. 

To prepare gas for evacuation it is necessary to separate the gas and liquid phases and extract or inhibit any components in the gas which are likely to cause pipeline corrosion or blockage. Components which can cause difficulties are water vapour (corrosion, hydrates), heavy hydrocarbons (2-phase flow or wax deposition in pipelines), and contaminants such as carbon dioxide (corrosion) and hydrogen sulphide (corrosion, toxicity). In the case of associated gas, if there is no gas market, gas may have to be flared or re-injected. If significant volumes of associated gas are available it may be worthwhile to extract natural gas liquids (NGLs) before flaring or reinjection. Gas may also have to be treated for gas lifting or for use as a fuel. 

Gas processing facilities generally work best at between 10 and 100 bar. At low pressure, vessels have to be large to operate effectively, whereas at higher pressures facilities can be smaller but vessel walls and piping systems must be thicker. Optimum recovery of heavy hydrocarbons is achieved between 20 bar and 40 bar. Long distance pipeline pressures may reach 150 bar and reinjection pressure can be as high as 700 bar. The gas process line will reflect gas quality and pressure as well as delivery specifications. 

The most common solvent employed is carbon dioxide gas, which can be injected between water spacers, a process known as WaterAlternating Gas (WAG). In most commercial schemes the gas is recovered and reinjected, sometimes with produced reservoir gas, after heavy hydrocarbons have been removed. Other solvents include nitrogen and methane. 

Domestic petroleum, natural gas, and natural gas Hquids production has declined at a rate commensurate with the decrease in reserves (see Table 2). Consequently, the reserves/production ratio, expressed in years, remained relatively constant from about 1970 through 1992, at 9—11 years (16). Much of the production in the early 1990s is the result of enhanced oil recovery techniques water flooding, steam flooding, CO2 injection, and natural gas reinjection. 

Most heavy oil production is concentrated in California, Canada, and Venezuela. There is significant production of heavy oil in California from the Kern River field near Bakersfield and in Canada from the Cold Lake deposit in Alberta. Production generally involves steam drives, or the injection of steam into reservoirs through special wells in prescribed sequences. Oil—water mixtures are recovered, and often separated water is treated and reinjected. 

Fig. 6. In a binary electricity generation plant, the hydrothermal water from the weU, A, is passed through a heat exchanger, B, where its thermal energy is transferred to a second, more volatile working fluid. The second fluid is vaporized and deflvered to a turbine, D. After exiting the turbine the spent working fluid is cooled and recondensed in another heat exchanger, E, using water or air as the coolant, F. It is then fed back to the primary heat exchanger to repeat the cycle. Waste hydrothermal fluid, C, can be reinjected into the producing field.

The I2 formed stays in solution, exerting a certain vapor pressure, and is extracted from the brine in a countercurrent air blow-out process. The extracted brine leaves the extraction tower and is discarded or reinjected into the wells to avoid sinking of the soil. The iodine-loaded air is then submitted to a cocurrent desorption process by means of an acidic iodide solution to which SO2 is added. By this solution the iodine is reduced to iodide by the following reaction ... 

Plants in the United States are basicaHy iodine producers and must extract the solutions from deep (between 2000- and 3000-m) weUs. The depleted solutions are reinjected for environmental reasons and maintain the pressure of the exploitation area. In Japan, on the other hand, iodine is mainly a by-product of natural gas production, and the weUs are less deep (about 1500 m). Depleted solutions are often discarded into the ocean. Costs associated with deep weUs are relatively high, reaching 1.7 to 2.0 x 10 in the United States and up to ca 0.7 x 10 in Japan. 

FoUowiag Monsanto s success, several companies produced membrane systems to treat natural gas streams, particularly the separation of carbon dioxide from methane. The goal is to produce a stream containing less than 2% carbon dioxide to be sent to the national pipeline and a permeate enriched ia carbon dioxide to be flared or reinjected into the ground. CeUulose acetate is the most widely used membrane material for this separation, but because its carbon dioxide—methane selectivity is only 15—20, two-stage systems are often required to achieve a sufficient separation. The membrane process is generally best suited to relatively small streams, but the economics have slowly improved over the years and more than 100 natural gas treatment plants have been installed. 

As reservoir pressure is reduced by oil production, additional recovery mechanisms may operate. One such mechanism is natural water drive. Water from an adjacent more highly pressured formation is forced into the oil-bearing formation by the pressure differential between the formations. Another mechanism is gas drive. Expansion of a gas cap above the oil as oil pressure declines can also drive additional oil to the wellbore. Produced gas may be reinjected to maintain gas cap pressure as is done on the Alaskan North Slope. Additional oil may also be produced by compaction of the reservoir rock as oil production reduces reservoir pressure. 

Gas injection into a gas cap overlaying an oil reservoir is considered an EOR method. The resulting repressurization of the reservoir promotes additional oil production. Reinjection of natural gas is responsible for a significant fraction of Alaskan North Slope oil production. 

In kaolin (clay) processing, sulfur dioxide reduces colored impurities, eg, iron compounds. In the bromine industry, sulfur dioxide is used as an antioxidant in spent brine to be reinjected underground. In agriculture, especially in California, sulfur dioxide is used to increase water penetration and the avadabiHty of soil nutrients by virtue of its abiHty to acidulate saline—alkaH soils (327). It is also usefiil for cleaning ferric and manganese oxide deposits from tile drains (328). 

In the early years of ground water and soil remediation, pump and treat was the conventional technology. Contaminated ground water is pumped to the surface where it is treated and reinjected or discharged to surface waters or wastewater treatment plants. Reinjection maybe used to stimulate in situ... 

Continuous-Flow Compressors Continuous-flow compressors are machines where the flow is continuous, unlike positive displacement machines where the flow is fluctuating. Continuous-flow compressors are also classified as turbomachines. These types of machines are widely used in the chemical and petroleum industiy for many services. They are also used extensively in many other industries such as the iron and steel industry, pipeKne boosters, and on offshore platforms for reinjection compressors. Continuous-flow machines are usually much smaller in size and produce much less vibration than their counterpart, positive displacement units. 

Control of ga.s movement by recovery. The movement of gases in landfills can also be controlled by instadhng gas-recovery wells in completed landfills (see Fig. 25-74b). This is considered an active venting system. Clay and other hners are used when landfill gas is to be recovered. In some gas-recovery systems, leachate is collected and recycled to the top of the landfill and reinjected through perforated lines located in drainage trenches. Typically, the rate of gas production is greater in leachate-recirculation systems. 

Power and heating plants have used settling chambers to collect large unbumed carbon particles for reinjection into the boiler. They are particularly useful for industries that also need to cool the gas stream prior to treatment in a fabric filter (Mycock, 1995). 

Fossil-fuel and wood-waste fired industrial and commercial fuel combustion units commonly use multiple cyclones (generally upstream of a wet scrubber, ESP, or fabric filter) which collect fine PM (< 2.5 im) with greater efficiency than a single cyclone. In some cases, collected fly ash is reinjected into the combustion unit to improve PM control efficiency (AWMA, 1992 Avallone, 1996 STAPPA/ALAPCO, 1996 EPA, 1998). 

This case serves to point out the importance of maintaining a constant hydraulic gradient on the inside and outside of a slurry wall. This can also become a factor if slurry walls are used with groundwater pumping systems (extraction wells). Then water must be reinjected to maintain a... 

Accepting that the cryofocussing/remobilization process is both effective in the collection of discrete sections of the effluent from column 1, and very rapid in reinjection to column 2, we can now propose a number of ways of using the LMCS device in multidimensional gas chromatography modes. 

Nevertheless, a number of gas chromatographic applications exist, epecially those for the determination of crude oil indicators. Such indicators are used as geochemical parameters for the thermal history of the crude as well as to indicate the possible relationship between crudes from different wells. These indicators comprise a number of isomeric aromatic species, such as the individual alkylnaphthalenes (44, 45), the individual Cio-mono-aromatics or the individual C9-mono-aromatics. The ratio between these isomers gives a definite indication of the crude oil. In general, these systems use a Deans switching unit to make a heart-cut, which then is focused, reinjected and separated on a second column with a different polarity. 

To reduce the amount of waste and disposal costs, drill cuttings are increasingly being reinjected into the formations from which they came. 

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