The TRACERCO Profiler™

By controlling the separator process the TRACERCO Profiler™ enables the production rate to be increased whilst minimising environmental non-compliance and optimising the addition of expensive chemicals.

Features of the TRACERCO Profiler™

• Characterizes real-time vessel conditions
• Zero maintenance and no moving parts
• Totally non invasive
• SCADA compatible
• No wetted parts
• Unaffected by scale

Benefits of the TRACERCO Profiler™

• Optimises vessel performance
• Increased production throughput in the vessel
• Improved process control
• Cost savings on chemical additives
• Avoids accidental oil discharge in produced water
• Detects sand build up

The TRACERCO Profiler™ for desalter applications

It is not only in the offshore industry where The TRACERCO Profiler™ has saved our customers operating expenses. Within many refineries there is a growing tendency to process heavier crudes or blend these into lighter feedstocks. During crude oil refining it is advantageous to optimise the blend to reduce overall feedstock costs whilst at the same time ensuring the final mix can be adequately processed with minimal upset.

One of the fundamental needs is the efficient separation of waste water from the crude using a desalter vessel after water washing the feedstock to reduce chloride levels.

Upon a request from a major oil refiner, Tracerco redesigned its award winning TRACERCO Profiler™ instrument to withstand the elevated operating temperatures typically experienced within a desalter vessel. Tracerco’s in-house development capability of leading edge scientists and physicists was used to produce, test and commission a new instrument with suitable design specifications within a six month timeframe needed to meet a pre-planned shutdown schedule.

Utilizing advanced measurement technology, The TRACERCO Profiler™ can accurately measure phases including oil, emulsion (rag), water and solids/sludge in a desalter vessel in real time to 1” vertical resolution across the vessel vertical span.

The experience gained from use of The TRACERCO Profiler™ installation has allowed a number of measurable benefits to be realised including;-

1. Operator confidence to run the interface level closer to the lower electrostatic grid thus optimising separation of difficult blends
2. Increased upstream desalter mixing to enhance chloride removals from downstream vessels thus reducing corrosion issues
3. Increased blending ratios of lower quality crudes with enhanced margin of refined products
4. Optimisation of emulsion and asphaltene reducing chemicals within the desalting process leading to considerable cost savings
5. The elimination of process upsets resulting from water carryover or oil carry under from the desalter vessel

There is no proven technology available which is comparable to The TRACERCO Profiler™ for desalter optimisation. If you wish to gain the competitive advantages of lower feedstock and effect chemical costs, higher throughput, zero maintenance and clean environmental credentials we invite you to contact us for further information.

The TRACERCO Profiler™ for subsea applications

The future of oil recovery lies in accessing increasingly complicated reserves. In many applications seabed processing holds the key. This presents many challenges including providing robust and reliable real time information about key process parameters.

Tracerco has been involved in the revolutionary application of its award winning Profiler technology for use in the first commercial seabed processing plant.

With global oil prices reaching record levels and primary recovery methods approaching their use-by-dates, the industry is in a critical position.

The industry needs a greater range of improved oil recovery techniques and the race for suitable, cost-effective solutions is now on.

The benefits of the proven Tracerco Profiler technology have now been taken subsea to provide the ultimate marriage between performance, reliability and the environment. Maintenance free the instrument provides vertical phase distribution, interface quality and level information to enable transparent separation.

Tracerco has provided the Profiler instrument that provides vital operational information for measurement and control of the separators. Although primarily used here to enable reliable two phase separation the Profiler technology employed is already capable of providing for the future needs of subsea separation. Each Profiler supports the configuration of up to 6 specific phase classifications which typically include sand, water, emulsion, water and foaming measurements.

The TRACERCO Profiler™ will allow reliable, robust, accurate, quantative and qualitative measurement of the various phases present within the separator. As well as providing real time information associated with the quality and extent of the interfaces, each phase is prescribed a density band or range and outputs are allocated to represent the phase elevations enabling tight control mechanisms to be administered by the package control system.

It is likely that over the next ten to twenty years, projects of this nature will become increasingly prevalent.

Beyond financial considerations, environmental pressures are highlighting the need to find cleaner methods of oil extraction, which will only increase over the coming years.

The following are awards that have been won by the TRACERCO Profiler™:
Northern Offshore - Innovation Award Finalist; Queens Award for Innovation Winner 2003; ICEST Award Runner Up; OTC Spotlight on New Technology Award 2004

Brochure A PDF version of The TRACERCO Profiler™ is available, to download it click here