New Environmentally Improved Demulsifiers for Nigerian Oilfields

Abstract Resolving oilfield emulsions is crucial for downstream oilfield operations. Inefficient water separation from crude oil escalates production costs and can lead to issues like increased corrosion and limited capacity. In practice, chemical treatment using demulsifiers is one the most effective method for phase separation. Traditional demulsifiers often incorporate a mix of EO/PO (Ethylene Oxide/Propylene Oxide) based elements, phenol-formaldehyde resins, and diepoxides. However, due to stricter environmental and safety regulations, such as OSPAR (Oslo & Paris Convention) or similar ones in certain West African countries, there's a push for more sustainable oilfield solutions. In recent years, the industry has seen a rise in less harmful, environmentally friendly alternatives. These alternatives, built on biodegradable blocks with low aquatic toxicity, have less environmental impact. However, their application can be challenging due to cost, performance, and implementation issues. Over the last few years, we have successfully developed a new range of demulsifier intermediates as sustainable alternatives to traditional demulsifier chemistries fulfilling regulatory requirements for offshore and onshore use. Apart from sustainable building-blocks the new demulsifiers are produced using a novel process, resulting in an improved cost-performance ratio. In this article, we share the results of dehydration studies on North Sea, American, and Nigerian oil emulsions using our newly developed, environmentally friendly demulsifiers. We also demonstrate the outstanding dehydration treatment achieved by combining traditional EO/PO block polymers or resin-based demulsifiers with our innovative drier demulsifiers. Showcasing their synergistic effects. Obtained results from the above three testing scenarios provided a good insight on the improvement of the water separation speed/time by more than 30%, synergic combination of newly developed demulsifiers had also an exceptionally good impact on the separated water quality. We conducted classic demulsification tests to evaluate the performance of our newly developed formulations in various bottle testing scenarios. We will present the performance comparison of this new range of demulsifiers against, and in combination with, traditional demulsifiers under different conditions.