Preserving stability of produced oil properties during transport by removal of bottom sediments using flat flexible electrical heaters as the method of oil processing

In recent years in Russian oil production, percentage of high-viscosity and high-wax oil is noticeably increasing. Production, transport and storage of such oil is a complex problem both in terms of technology and equipment. One of the basic issues connected with the oil storage is high-rate formation of asphalt–resin–wax sediments on the bottoms of storage tanks and instability of properties of produced oil. Oil waxing drops due to wax precipitation. It is proposed to clean oil storage tanks from bottom sediments, with preserving properties of high-wax oil, using natural convection flux of heated oil. In this connection, the details of high-wax oil storage are discussed and the structure of the current systems and methods of cleaning oil storage tanks is presented. The available methods of heating tanks for combating bottom sedimentation are analyzed. The comparative characteristic is given to the heating methods using heat carriers in the form of steam or electric power, and the installation layout on the bottom and walls of a tank is presented. The article reports preliminary calculation results on efficiency criteria of the heating flowsheet for oil reservoir tanks at Ukhta-1 pump station. © 2018, Publishing house Mining book. All rights reserved.