Water processing system and methods
View Patent ↗A system comprising a well drilled into an underground formation comprising hydrocarbons; a water supply; a steam production facility, the steam production facility comprising a filter to remove at least 80% of a quantity of divalent cations in the water supply; an exchange resin to remove at least 80% of a quantity of divalent cations in a filtered water stream that has already passed through the filter; a steam injection facility connected to the well and the steam production facility, adapted to inject the steam into the well.
1. A system comprising:
a well drilled into an underground formation comprising hydrocarbons;
a water supply;
a steam production facility, the steam production facility comprising:
a filter to remove at least 80% of a quantity of divalent cations in the water supply;
an exchange resin to remove at least 80% of a quantity of divalent cations in a filtered water stream that has already passed through the filter;
a steam injection facility connected to the well and the steam production facility, adapted to inject the steam into the well.
2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a second well drilled into the underground formation; and
a hydrocarbon production facility at a topside of the second well.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the exchange resin comprises at least one of a weak acid ion exchange resin and/or a chelating cation exchange resin.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the underground formation is beneath a body of water.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the steam production facility is above a body of water, such as on a production platform.
6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a water pumping apparatus, adapted to pump water from the water supply to the steam production facility.
7. The system claim 1 , wherein the steam 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.
8. The system claim 1 , wherein the well comprises a diameter from 10 to 25 cm.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the filter removes at least 95% of the quantity of divalent cations.
10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the filter removes at least 99% of the quantity of divalent cations.
11. A method comprising:
filtering a water supply to remove at least 80% of a quantity of divalent cations from the water;
further processing the filtered water with an exchange resin to remove at least 80% of a remaining quantity of divalent cations from the filtered water; and
boiling the filtered and processed water to produce steam.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising injecting the steam into an underground formation, the formation comprising oil.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the steam is injected from 10 to 100 bars above a reservoir pressure.
14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the oil in the underground formation prior to steam being injected has a viscosity from 5 cp to 10,000 cp.
15. The method of one or more of claims 12 , wherein the oil in the underground formation prior to steam being injected has a viscosity from 500 cp to 5,000 cp.
16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the underground formation has a permeability from 5 to 0.0001 Darcy.
17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the underground formation has a permeability from 1 to 0.001 Darcy.
18. The method of claim 12 , injecting the steam into an injection well in the underground formation.
19. The method of claim 12 , wherein the water supply has a total dissolved salts value of at least 15,000 parts per million, expressed as sodium chloride dissolved, prior to the filtering and further processing steps.
20. The method of claim 11 , wherein at least a portion of the water supply is water produced from an underground formation.
21. The method of claim 11 , wherein at least a portion of the water supply is seawater.
22. The method of claim 11 , further comprising removing some monovalent cations from the water.
23. The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the water supply removes at least 90% of the quantity of divalent cations.
24. The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the water supply removes at least 95% of the quantity of divalent cations.
25. The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the water supply removes at least 99% of the quantity of divalent cations.
26. The method of claim 11 , wherein further processing the filtered water with an exchange resin removes at least 90% of the remaining quantity of divalent cations from the filtered water.
27. The method of claim 11 , wherein further processing the filtered water with an exchange resin removes at least 95% of the remaining quantity of divalent cations from the filtered water.
28. The method of claim 11 , wherein further processing the filtered water with an exchange resin removes at least 99% of the remaining quantity of divalent cations from the filtered water.