Endpoint Industrial Controls delivers turnkey automation and control solutions for a wide range of industries – from oil and gas to renewables to manufacturing.
- Design a responsive, agile control solution for dissolved air flotation (DAF) systems used in produced water recycling.
- Easily scales to handle one or multiple DAF units.
- Manages up to 3000 gallons of water a minute or about 100,000 barrels a day for each DAF on site.
- Can be commissioned at a new jobsite in typically one to four hours.
Challenge
A Better Way to Manage Produced Water
Crude oil isn’t the only element extracted in the oilfield. Naturally occurring water – or “produced water” – is an ever-present byproduct that must be managed in an environmentally compliant way.
Water is also vital to drilling and fracking.
“Water is a primary ingredient in ‘drilling mud,’ which is used to equalize pressure and stabilize exposed rocks during the well-drilling process,” said John Clay, CEO, Endpoint Industrial Controls. “Of course, water is also used to create fractures, which allows hydrocarbons to more easily flow.”
Highly brackish, untreated produced water is unfit for drilling and fracking operations. And until relatively recently, most was piped to highly regulated salt water disposal (SWD) wells. Oil companies relied on other water sources for production needs.
But thanks to expanding water treatment capabilities, produced water is increasingly recycled. One produced water midstream company is leading the way. And they called on Endpoint for an agile control system to match their innovative water treatment and recycling technologies.
Endpoint Industrial Controls delivers turnkey automation and control solutions for a wide range of industries – from oil and gas to renewables to manufacturing. Headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, the company is part of the Rockwell Automation® PartnerNetwork™ program.
System Complexity and Volume Requirements
Established in 2013, Endpoint’s customer operates more than a dozen geographically dispersed water recycling facilities and associated pipelines throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico. In total, their facilities manage 1.2 million barrels of produced water per day.
“The company has both permanent facilities and mobile units,” Clay said. “The mobile systems might be set up for a couple of months or a few years – and then rotated to another site.”
Dissolved air flotation (DAF) technology is the centerpiece of the system. The influent water stream is pumped into the DAF vessel, where various chemicals including coagulants, flocculants and oxidants treat the water. A pressurized airstream is introduced, creating micro-bubbles in the solution.
Lighter particles in the water attach to the bubbles and rise to the surface. Heavier particles sink to the bottom. The particles – mostly hydrocarbons, chemicals and solids – are removed as sludge. The treated effluent is pumped to a clear water well where it is tested for clarity, stored – and pumped to a fracking operation for reuse.
From a control standpoint, the system presents two critical challenges.
“First, these sites aren’t all the same – and you might be dealing with one DAF or multiple units,” Clay explained. “Second, the system must be responsive enough to manage up to 3000 gallons of water a minute – or 100,000 barrels a day for each DAF on site.”
Solution
Adaptable Control in Remote Locations
Because the water treatment solutions are engineered on a project-by-project basis, Endpoint based their control solution on the agile PlantPAx® distributed control system (DCS) from Rockwell Automation.
“Oftentimes, we encounter changes in instrumentation from jobsite to jobsite,” Clay said. “Using the PlantPAx platform, we developed a program that allows for high configurability on an abbreviated timeline.”
To achieve the processing speed required, the skidded solution is based on Allen-Bradley® CompactLogix™ controllers, PowerFlex® AC drives for pump control and PanelView™ HMIs. In addition to providing monitoring capabilities at the jobsite, Endpoint delivers SCADA integration to enable reporting at company headquarters.
Endpoint collaborates closely with their customer as skids are moved and repurposed.
“Our customer can make most changes to the control system on their own, through the HMI,” said Clay. “But if they need our assistance, we can typically handle programming changes remotely.”
Given the rugged, desolate locations for most water treatment skids, standard network connectivity is not an option.
“Many of the sites have no network connectivity, no mobile phone coverage,” Clay explained. “Instead, we use a low-orbit satellite service for the access we need to manage end-to-end integration.”
Result
Putting Agility to the Test
Following a pipeline oil spill in December 2022, the flexibility of the DAF-based water treatment system was put to the test. The pipeline dumped more than 500,000 gallons of crude oil when it ruptured near Mill Creek, Kansas.
“Authorities called on our customer to help remediate impact to Mill Creek,” Clay said. “They were able to quickly repurpose one of their existing skids to respond to this request.”
According to the EPA, the surface water treatment system effectively treated and discharged up to 4.5 million gallons of water per day – more than 35 million gallons total when the water remediation efforts were completed. Endpoint’s customer played an important role in these efforts.
Learn more about OEM Solutions.
Published October 2, 2023
