Horizontal

Separators
Product Data Sheet
January 2001
KCC’s Range of
KCC Process Equipment Horizontal Test
London - Abu Dhabi - Houston
www.kccprocess.com and Production
Separators
Key Benefits Background
Excellent performance over a
1 wide operating range
KCC is a leading, international supplier
of process equipment and packaged
plants to the oil, gas and petrochemical
Typical Production Separator during assembly

Able to handle high liquid

2 loads and slugs
industries. Standard and High
Standard and compact
Separator Development
The principle of the pressurised
Capacity Designs
3 designs available using a
range of internals
Horizontal Separator has been around
since the early 20th Century. Their
Summary

Special floating production
4 system designs available
Low fouling internals
5 available for waxy or dirty
service
Full range of materials
6 available for corrosive
services
simplicity, low pressure drop and wide
operating envelope make them the
regular choice for oil field operations.
The technology employed in the design
of horizontal separators has changed
somewhat over the years:
Ø Early inlet deflectors were absent;
modern equivalents use multi vane
or multi cyclone designs
Ø Angle iron bars were used to
capture carryover; these have
developed into serpentine vanes
Ø The first coalescers were bundles
of straw; now many low fouling,
stainless steel designs are available
Although some of these concepts were
proposed in the 1960’s, it was not until
the 1980-90’s that the design tools and
measuring instruments were developed
to enable them to become common
reality.
Applications for gas, oil, and water
separation vary from case to case,
hence the wide range of solutions to be
found in industry. In practice however,
most situations require similar
characteristics to be achieved:
1. Best, reliable phase separation
performance
2. Lowest pressure drop
3. Widest operating envelope for gas
and liquid flows and properties
Other challenges facing the equipment
designer include the presence of foam,
wax, sand, emulsions, and slugs.
In view of these requirements, KCC
has developed a straightforward range
of Horizontal Test and Production
Separators as follows:
Standard Designs
KCC’s simplest type of standard
horizontal separator uses a dual vane
inlet device, a perforated oil

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distribution baffle, an oil overflow weir Ø FPSO Separators are fitted with a
(for 3 phase operation) and a wire range of special baffles and
mesh pad for liquid droplet removal coalescers to minimise the adverse
from the gas, as illustrated below. motion effects

Ø Slug or surge capacity is added
between the normal and high
liquid level
Ø Sand removal is provided using
Special Designs special sand jet headers and a sand
KCC has the following solutions to pan arrangement
various special design requirements:
Ø Vane or UltraGee™ Axial Swirl
Ø Multi-Vane Inlet Devices are used Demisters are used when waxes
when the gas and liquid loads are present in the system, or for
approach design limits for the increased gas capacity
vessel size
Ø Enhanced oil/water separation or
Ø UltraGee™ Multi Cyclone Inlet throughput is achieved using
Devices or CoPak® packs are used CoPak® coalescing plate packs
when crude is known to be foamy
Test Separators
Test separators are used to measure the
flow through single wells. Good
separation is required, with metering
and BS&W measurement of the
individual product streams. These
streams are often recombined after
testing.
KCC’s Test Separators are supplied as
packaged units, completely pre-
assembled and ready for installation.
Production Separators

How it works…
Drawing on the full range of internals
options, KCC’s Production Separators
combine maximum operational
performance and flexibility with low
maintenance.

Separators are available fully skid

mounted, or as bare vessels, or on the
basis of internals only for fabrication
by others.

Sizing Guidelines
Oil API 2 Phase RT 3 Phase RT
10 - 20 2 – 4 min 10 – 20 min
20 - 30 1 – 2 min 5 – 10 min
> 35 1 min 3 – 5 min

Ø Gas space ‘K’ factor < 0.15 m/s

Ø Inlet and gas outlet sized for
velocity = 100/(r^0.5) m/s
Ø Liquid outlet sized for 2 m/s

Liquid carry-over in the gas is less than 0.1 USG/MMSCF The above information is for guidance only – for
confirmation refer to KCC.
Oil in water carry-over is typically between 0.1 to 1.0% vol
KCC Process Equipment
Water in oil carry-over is typically between 0.5 to 5.0% vol London - Abu Dhabi - Houston
www.kccprocess.com

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