Improving Heater Treater Fuel Efficiency
Authors: Ferguson Kenneth R. , Stechmann Richard H. 
Published: December 2007

This paper describes a program carried out to find the most cost-effective method of increasing the combustion efficiency of direct-gas-fired heater treaters. A mobile combustion analysis system was used to pinpoint areas of heat loss in production treaters. Data were used to define an efficiency improvement program that ultimately cut fuel consumption in the test field by 67%.

Introduction

The ever-increasing shortage of fossil fuels in the world today recently began to show its effects in the production of oil and gas. In most cases, the heat production of oil and gas. In most cases, the heat required to break a produced emulsion into separate oil and water phases is provided by a heater treater. The traditional source of fuel for heater treaters is the produced gas from the emulsion being separated. Until recently, lease gas has been plentiful, and very little, if any, attention has been paid to producing or maintaining a heater treater that burns gas in an efficient manner. The recent increase in commercial gas prices combined with a decline in gas/oil ratios in older fields and enhanced recovery operations suddenly finds many production personnel highly concerned about the efficient use of fuel gas. This paper describes a series of combustion-efficiency paper describes a series of combustion-efficiency improvement tests conducted on treaters in Gulf Oil Corp's Baxterville field in southern Mississippi. The study was defined to investigate the overall performance of heater treaters in terms of design, performance of heater treaters in terms of design, manufacturing, theoretical performance, and actual field operating characteristics. The information permits an evaluation of actual unit efficiency and permits an evaluation of actual unit efficiency and pinpoints areas of maximum energy waste and pinpoints areas of maximum energy waste and possible methods of increasing efficiency. possible methods of increasing efficiency. Preliminary Efficiency Study Preliminary Efficiency Study Program Description Program Description The heater treater study was defined by a six-step project outlined as follows: (1) obtain information project outlined as follows:obtain information from the treater industry on present design and manufacturing processes, as well as any research or design changes aimed at energy conservation,conduct a field examination of existing treaters to obtain information on actual operating characteristics,analyze the results of the field study to determine efficiency and pinpoint areas of maximum heat loss,scrutinize the industry-proposed unit modifications from Step 1 in terms of the field data to determine which alterations would produce the largest efficiency increase,retrofit field units with selected equipment and related process-monitoring instruments to permit a determination of the efficiency improvement that could be expected from any given change in treater configuration, andif the results of experimental retrofitting so dictated,

modify all field units with similar equipment.

Information Search

Seven major heater treater manufacturers were contacted to gather state-of-the-art information on treater design, construction, and operation. It commonly was acknowledged that the basic gas-fired heater treater, as sold, is an inherently inefficient device because there has been no demand for a more fuel-efficient device. Considering the abundance of cheap gas in the past, and the highly cost-competitive nature of the treater industry, it was deemed senseless by manufacturers to incur higher costs by incorporating energy conservation measures in a market where they were not considered necessary.

JPT

P. 971