Level Interface Sensing For Water Dump Control In The Oil And Gas Industry

By William Sholette, Endress+Hauser

Accurate and reliable detection of the interface between oil and water in a water dump tank improves the separation process

In a fracking operation at oil and gas wells, water and oil both come to the surface, and must be separated. Oil and gas can be filtered from the water fairly easily, but the remaining water, called “produced water”, is contaminated and must be treated before being released into the environment.

Fracking is becoming widely used in the oil and gas industry. As it grows in popularity, treating produced water coming from wells is becoming a major challenge, especially because the cost of cleaning produced water is about 300 times that of cleaning municipal waste water.