On 2 July 2008, VWS Westgarth Ltd celebrated the “load out” for their Singapore-built sulphate removal / sea water reverse osmosis membrane package for the SBM FPSO Espirito Santo.
The contract, awarded in April 2007, was the fifth process package purchased by SBM from VWS Westgarth, continuing on from the SRP systems supplied on FPSO Brazil (90,000BWPD) in 2000, FPSO Capixaba (140,000BPD) in 2005, both for offshore Brazil, FPSO Mondo (125,000BWPD SRP and 6,900BWPD SWRO washwater) and FPSO Saxi-Batuque (150,000BWPD SRP and 8,000BWPD SWRO washwater) in 2007 for offshore Angola.
The floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO), a converted oil tanker, on works completion will be deployed in the Espirito Santos Field, offshore Brazil on a charter contract for Shell.
The Espirito Santo sulphate removal system is capable of delivering 75,000BWPD of low sulphate water for injection. The module design also incorporates a 5,000BWPD SWRO providing washwater to the crude oil export system.
The sulphate removal membrane process removes sulphate and other divalent ions from the sea water prior to injection, greatly reducing the tendency for barium sulphate and strontium sulphate scale to form in the reservoir. In addition, as the sulphate content is reduced, the possibility of hydrogen sulphide forming is also reduced and souring does not occur.
The delivery of this module further establishes both the sulphate removal process as the industry recognised solution to reservoir scale management, and VWS Westgarth’s world-leading position in the design and supply of this specialist technology.
HSE objective
The module rolled out of the fabrication yard in Singapore with clean sheets in respect of HSE statistics, achieving the common VWS Westgarth and customer HSE objective of delivering the plant with zero lost time incidents.
This achievement represents another world leading success for Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies in the oil and gas sector, and for the design and project management skills of VWS Westgarth. The successful project execution is a credit to the many people involved – customers, suppliers, subcontractors and our own project team.