Sand Removal - FMC Technologies

Sand is a common operating challenge in the oil and gas industry. Sand is produced with the oil, gas and water from the reservoir and is transported with the fluids to the production system. It may cause severe problems due to erosion of upstream infrastructure and – even more commonly – major difficulties due to clogging of processing equipment. Sand settles to the bottom of the gravity separator because of its high density and must be removed to avoid build of a large layer that eventually will affect the separation performance.

Sand Jetting System

The Sand Jetting system is commonly used in the upstream separator to remove solids that settles in gravity separators. It fluidizes the solids with pressurized water introduced through specially designed nozzles. The solids are then discharged through sand drains located down the length of the vessel. The system can be arranged to flush the complete length of the vessel at the same time or, if the flushing water supply is limited, the system can be sectioned off for flushing smaller lengths. Above the sand drains runs a sand pan that prevents the clogging of the sand drain nozzles prior to flushing. This is especially important for on-line flushing since it is very difficult to clean a blocked nozzle. The sand pan has triangular cut outs down its length through which the fluidized sand will pass to get to the sand drains. It is the task of the flushing nozzles to keep these triangular openings blockage free to ensure an optimal flushing cycle.