Crude Oil Treatment & Dehydration Training Course

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Analyze crude oil properties and pipeline, export, and refinery specifications, including water and sediment, salt content, vapor pressure, and hydrogen sulfide, on Day 1.
• Explain how water-in-oil emulsions form and the factors that affect emulsion stability, including natural surfactants, asphaltenes, solids, shear, and temperature.
• Evaluate crude oil treatment methods, including gravity separation, heating, chemical demulsification, and electrostatic coalescence.
• Describe the design and operation of free water knockouts, heater-treaters, and wash and settling tanks.
• Apply the principles and operation of electrostatic dehydrators and single and two-stage desalting systems, including wash water and mixing.
• Select demulsifiers and optimize chemical dosing using bottle tests and field trials.
• Explain crude oil stabilization and sweetening to control vapor pressure and hydrogen sulfide content.
• Apply sampling and laboratory testing methods for water and sediment, water content, and salt content to monitor treatment performance.
• Apply process control strategies, including interface level control, temperature control, and electrostatic grid control.
• Troubleshoot common treatment problems, including stable emulsions, rag layers, water carryover, oil in water, and high salt content.
• Address heavy oil treatment challenges and manage interfaces with produced water treatment and custody transfer.
• Optimize crude oil treatment for performance, energy use, chemical cost, and safety and develop a treatment improvement plan by the end of Day 5.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
• Explain the key crude oil specifications and why they matter.
• Describe how emulsions form and what makes them difficult to break.
• Select appropriate treatment methods for different crude types and water cuts.
• Operate and optimize heater-treaters and settling tanks.
• Operate electrostatic dehydrators and desalters effectively.
• Select demulsifiers and optimize chemical dosing.
• Explain how crude is stabilized to meet vapor pressure and hydrogen sulfide limits.
• Interpret laboratory results to monitor treatment performance.
• Control interfaces, temperatures, and electrical systems for stable operation.
• Diagnose and correct common treatment upsets.
• Manage heavy crude and produced water interface challenges.
• Improve treatment efficiency while reducing energy and chemical costs.

Course Outline