Recent Advancements in Vessel Desanding Technology

Production of formation sand and other solids with wellstreams has been a big challenge in the petroleum industry. Presence of sand in the production stream can cause erosion of upstream facilities and – even more commonly – clogging of flowlines and accumulation in production vessels; reducing residence time and performance of separator internals. Several methods have been applied in the petroleum industry to remove deposited sand from production vessels. Some of the drawbacks with these technologies are: localized sand removal, excessive use of water, interference on vessel liquid levels, compromise of water and oil quality, risks of clogging, huge sand system infrastructural size etc. Direct consequence of these situations would be unmanageable disturbances on production operations, and eventually leading to unplanned shutdown, and production loss. Recent innovations on design of vessel desanding internals at FMC Technologies are the Dual and Single Vessel Desanding Systems. While the dual desanding system integrates a set of systematically arranged jet nozzles and a novel hydrodynamically designed suction system, the single desanding system is a unique combination of a smart elliptical fluidization technique and suction in a single compact design. This paper presents both technologies, with special focus on their developments and qualifications. Case studies are presented; highlighting the benefits of the new technologies, as well as their application possibilities.