Cost-effective pretreatment for SAGD boiler systems

Thermal evaporative systems from GE Water & Process Technologies help heavy oil producers achieve the optimum oil recovery with low environmental impact - including zero liquid discharge (ZLD).

In particular, GE technologies support higher-efficiency steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) systems, which require injection of 100% quality steam into wells. Production of this steam in a traditional once-through steam generator (OTSG) requires a series of vapor-liquid separators to remove liquid water. Blowdown from the separators is then deep-well injected or taken to ZLD in a Brine Concentrator or a salt crystallizer.

Standard drum boilers are a proven alternative to OTSGs: They are less expensive and more fuel efficient, and produce far less blowdown. However, they require higher-quality feedwater. Falling film vertical tube vapor compression evaporation, pioneered by GE, provides the feed pretreatment needed to support drum boilers. These systems can treat produced water directly for use as boiler make-up, at significant cost savings.

GE also helps producers manage oilfield waste streams. We have implemented several evaporator and crystallizer systems on heavy oil recovery sites in North America, Asia, and the Middle East. In northern Alberta, we installed the world's first two ZLD systems in oilfield applications.