Upstream Oil and Gas

UPSTREAM OIL & GAS

Oil and Gas Systems

Xylem provides a myriad of equipment to solve a wide a range of industry segments water management challenges. The Vacom system, when used in oil & gas water treatment applications:

Delivering Best Available Benefits

Provides a new source of water for reuse

Results in reduced Disposal expenses

Xylem’s Vacom technology has years of experience managing produced and frac water generated from the drilling and production of oil and gas.

Vacom systems have been deployed in the Pinedale Anticline of Wyoming and the Piceance Basin of Colorado. In both cases the treated effluent (distillate) was reused in the field or discharged under strict environmental compliance within regulatory limits.

Wyoming

In Wyoming, we operated in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem where the distillate was used for dust control on the lease roads within the Green River drainage as part of the Colorado River Basin. The distillate was also used for freshwater surface hole drilling.

Colorado

In Colorado, the treated effluent (distillate) was discharged into a local trout stream in the high country above Rifle, Colorado after re-mineralizing the distillate to match the stream conditions.

In both cases, extensive testing was performed with regulatory agencies to obtain and maintain permits.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Vacom performed full-scale pilot testing and received approval from Aramco to manage produced water separated from their Gas Oil Separation Plants (GOSPs) to be used for crude oil washing. This work was recognized in 2020 as the Industrial Water Project of the Year by the Global Water Awards.

The Vacom system can be operated as a concentrator to cost effectively recover fresh water. The system can also be operated as a crystallizer. When used this way, the crystallized salts are dewatered and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs) are washed out of the salts, to allow for salt reuse or disposal.

The Vacom System does not require pretreatment to remove oil and grease or fine suspended solids. Ammonia and VOC stripping systems to remove BETX and Methanol are also available as add-on technologies. Our systems can be designed as transportable skids, allowing for mobile deployments, or as fixed installations. Well head gas can be used to co-generate electricity and steam or other heated fluids necessary to drive the system.

Xylem has the technology and engineering expertise the industry needs.

By concentrating and crystallizing dissolved solids (salts) the Vacom System minimizes disposal costs.