SICIM – LUKOIL
West Qurna-2, located near Basra, Iraq, is one of the world’s largest onshore oil fields. The onshore project is owned and operated by Lukoil (75%) and North Oil Company (NOC, 25%), Iraq’s state-owned company.
SICIM is among the world-leading companies for the engineering, procurement, and construction of pipelines and oil & gas plants.
LUKOIL is one of the world’s leading companies for crude oil and gas production and their refinement into petroleum products and petrochemicals.
The challenge
SICIM S.p.A. sought a partner for a produced water treatment plant to be installed focusing on Produced Water Treatment and Water Injection Facilities expansion at West Qurna-2, the project for LUKOIL in Iraq, currently being executed by SICIM as an EPC Contractor.
The project
This project covered the engineering, procurement & workshop construction of the produced water treatment & sludge thickening and dewatering package.
The main aim of the unit is to reduce the significant inlet oil and suspended solids content to negligible levels while maintaining a low concentration of dissolved oxygen to enable reinjection into the oil field and assure steady oil production.
The produced water treatment package treats a total flow rate of 1320 m3/h equal to nearly 200 kbpd.
The supplied solution
The produced water treatment system is composed of the following:
- Corrugated Plate Interceptor (CPI)
- Induced Gas Flotation (IGF)
- Walnut Shell filters
- Final polishing with Cartridge filters
The application is particularly challenging because of the oil droplets’ small size and the suspended solid particle size distribution, with most particles well below 20 microns. For this reason, we implemented a specific section to increase the size of the flocs and allow effective separation.
The inlet-produced water contains high contents of chlorides and of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which requires the use of high alloy metals and sour service conditions.