As part of the Produced Water Management programme that started up in early 2020, DHRTC are now searching for new ideas to solve challenges related to reinjecting produced water in chalk fields. The deadline for submitting project proposals was 19 October 2020.
Produced water is a by-product of oil and gas production in the North Sea. The water is separated from the oil and gas stream and treated to strict quality requirements. A substantial amount of the treated water is discharged to the sea. In the Produced Water Management programme, we aim to increase the amount of water that can be reinjected to the subsurface. In most fields, this means that the produced water will need to be supplemented with seawater in order to maintain voidage replacement in the reservoir and to avoid that slugging production wells causes upsets in the water injection pumps.
There are a number of challenges related to reinjecting produced water, especially when mixing with seawater - both at the facilities, from a production chemicals perspective, in the wells, and in the reservoir, which ultimately also affects the production wells. This is illustrated in the below sketch of a typical water injection system. We are seeking ideas to solve some of these challenges.
Sketch showing the principles of a typical water injection system for produced water reinjection and related challenges. Click the photo for a larger version.
We encourage researchers to focus on a limited number of the above challenges, as the topic of produced water reinjection is very complex and therefore, not everything is easily solved.
Please contact the Produced Water Management team for questions and clarifications related to this call.