Plant-wide Control for Better De-oiling of Produced Water in Offshore Oil & Gas Production

This paper discusses the application of plant-wide control philosophy to enhance the performance and capacity of the Produced Water Treatment (PWT) in offshore oil & gas production processes. Different from most existing facility- or material-based PWT innovation methods, the objective of this work is to propose a software-based breakthrough PWT innovation solution. This is achieved through integration of an intelligent anti-slug control with a coordinated separator and hydrocyclone control. Some undergoing work and results are also introduced. The proposed solution will promote a completely new generation of PWT system in terms of better environmental protection, along with significantly improved production and reduced cost-vs-production ratio.