Water injection systems and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9464516-B2
Application number	US-201013505001-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 29, 2010
Priority date	Nov 2, 2009
Publication date	Oct 11, 2016
Grant date	Oct 11, 2016

Abstract

A system comprising a well drilled into an underground formation comprising hydrocarbons; a production facility at a topside of the well; a water production facility connected to the production facility; wherein the water production facility produces water by passing the water through a first and a second nanofiltration module, and then injects the water 5 into the well.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a well drilled into an underground formation comprising hydrocarbons;
a production facility at a topside of the well;
a water production facility connected to the production facility;
wherein the water production facility produces water by passing the water through a first and a second nanofiltration module, and then injects the water into the well wherein the underground formation is beneath a body of water and the production facility is floating on a body of water, and wherein the first nanofiltration module comprises a less selective nanofiltration membrane and the second nanofiltration module comprises a more selective nanofiltration membrane.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the production facility is a floating production platform.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a water supply and a water pumping apparatus, adapted to pump water to the water production facility.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the water production facility has an input water having a total dissolved salts value of at least 15,000 parts per million, expressed as sodium chloride dissolved.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising subjecting a reject stream from at least one of the first and the second nanofiltration modules to a recycle step.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising subjecting a reject stream from at least one of the first and the second nanofiltration modules to a third nanofiltration module.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first nanofiltration module comprises a sodium rejection rate at 25 bars from 30 to 50%.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second nanofiltration module comprises a sodium rejection rate at 25 bars from 70% to 98%.

9. A method of using a system according to claim 1 comprising:
subjecting input water to a first nanofiltration process;
then subjecting the water to a second nanofiltration process to produce processed water; and
injecting the processed water into an underground formation.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the water is recycled by being produced with oil and/or gas from the formation and then separated, and then re-injected into the formation.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein one or more of aromatics, chlorinated hydrocarbons, ethers, other hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, or mixtures thereof are mixed with the processed water prior to being injected into the formation.

12. The methods of claim 9 , wherein the processed water is heated prior to being injected into the formation.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein another material is injected into the formation after the processed water was injected.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the another material is selected from the group consisting of air, produced water, salt water, sea water, fresh water, steam, carbon dioxide, and/or mixtures thereof.

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein the processed water is injected from 10 to 100 bars above the reservoir pressure.

16. The method of claim 9 , wherein the oil in the underground formation prior to water being injected has a viscosity from 0.1 cp to 10,000 cp.

17. The method of claim 9 , wherein the underground formation has a permeability from 5 to 0.0001 Darcy.

18. The method of claim 9 , wherein the input water has a total dissolved salts value of at least 15,000 parts per million, expressed as sodium chloride dissolved, prior to removing any ions from the water.

19. A system comprising:
a first well drilled into an underground formation comprising hydrocarbons;
a production facility at a topside of a first well;
a water production facility connected to the production facility;
a second well drilled into the underground formation;
wherein the water production facility produces water by passing the water through a first and a second nanofiltration module, and injects the water into the second well and into the underground formation and wherein the underground formation is beneath a body of water and the production facility is floating on a body of water, and wherein the first nanofiltration module comprises a less selective nanofiltration membrane and the second nanofiltration module comprises a more selective nanofiltration membrane.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the first well is a distance of 50 meters to 2000 meters from the second well.

Assignees

• Ayirala Subhash Chandra Bose
• Chin Robert Wing-Yu
• Matzakos Andreas Nicholas
• Uehara-Nagamine Ernesto
• Shell Oil Co

Inventors

• Ayirala Subhash Chandra Bose
• Chin Robert Wing-Yu
• Matzakos Andreas Nicholas
• Uehara-Nagamine Ernesto

Classifications

• E21B43/16

  Enhanced recovery methods for obtaining hydrocarbons · CPC title

• B01D2311/04

  Specific process operations in the feed stream; Feed pretreatment · CPC title

• E21B43/20

  Displacing by water · CPC title

• B01D61/027

  Nanofiltration · CPC title

• B01D2311/2649

  Filtration · CPC title