Do you struggle to understand the importance of properly treating your rig boiler water? Want to learn how to improve rig boiler efficiency, reliability, and extend service life? If your rig boiler goes down, production comes to a halt! Lost production equals lost profits. And if you’re on a remote site, you don’t know how long it will take to get back online or have a replacement boiler delivered.
That’s why we’ll cover the benefits of proper rig boiler treatment and feed water testing in this article. We understand the critical role rig boilers play in the oil and gas industry and the catastrophic effects of poor feed water.
When you’re done reading, you’ll understand the three critical water parameters that affect rig boiler treatment. Best of all, you’ll know how to properly treat the water in your rig boiler for long-life and safe, reliable performance.
Rig Boilers in the Oil and Gas Industry
High demands and harsh operating conditions make it critical to properly treat and maintain your rig boiler to ensure reliable operations and prevent costly downtime. It’s important for rig boilers to provide a reliable heat supply for drilling operations. Their steam is used for various purposes, including:
- Drilling processes: Steam is used to power drilling equipment and maintain borehole stability.
- Heating and maintaining the temperature of drilling fluids: Steam is used to heat drilling mud to reduce viscosity and maintain an optimal temperature for wellbore stability.
- Providing heat for the crew: Winter conditions in the oil field can be cold and challenging. Rig boilers help provide heat for the crew and reduce the potential for cold exposure injuries.
Given their critical role in the oil and gas industry, it’s important to maintain rig boiler efficiency, prevent failure, and minimize downtime. The key to achieving this lies in understanding how water chemistry and proper rig boiler treatment affect performance.
The Effect of Poor Water Chemistry on Rig Boilers
Rig boilers are often fed with raw untreated water from the nearest source. It’s not uncommon to draw water from drainage ponds, sloughs, lakes, and other untreated water supplies. Untreated water used in rig boilers often contain high concentrations of minerals, metals, and other impurities. These impurities can lead to various problems, such as:
- Scaling: Mineral deposits from high hardness and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels accumulate on boiler surfaces, reduce heat transfer, increase fuel consumption, lead to under-deposit corrosion, overheating, and rig boiler failure.
- Corrosion: Low pH levels create a corrosive environment, lead to metal deterioration, leaks, and boiler component failure.
- Foaming and carryover: High concentrations of dissolved solids lead to foaming and carryover, damage downstream equipment and reduce system efficiency.
Untreated, these issues result in costly repairs, downtime, and even boiler replacement. Prevention is key. Proper rig boiler water treatment is a necessity.
Preventing Rig Boiler Failure with Water Treatment
To prevent issues from poor water chemistry, it is essential to implement a comprehensive water treatment program. This program should address the following key parameters:
- Hardness: Water hardness refers to the amount of magnesium and calcium dissolved in the water. Left untreated, these minerals form calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate scale on rig boiler surfaces. Where possible, choose rig boiler feed water sources with lower hardness. Lower initial hardness means better water quality and reduced treatment demand.
- Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): TDS is a measure of everything dissolved in the water. All minerals, metals, and non-metals. High TDS contributes to mineral build-up and scaling within the boiler. Implement a rig boiler blowdown procedure when TDS reaches 3500 ppm to reduce mineral build-up and prevent scaling.
- pH: pH determines how acidic or alkaline your water is. If not in the right range, water can be corrosive to metal. Maintaining an optimal pH range of 11-12 prevents corrosion, safeguarding your rig boiler’s metal components.
How EZE Treat Protects Your Rig Boiler
EZE Treat offers a comprehensive solution for rig boiler water treatment, addressing the critical parameters outlined above. By properly using EZE Treat, you:
- Prevent corrosion: EZE Treat adjusts the pH of boiler water to the optimal range, inhibiting corrosion and protecting metal components.
- Prevent scale: EZE Treat disperses minerals, forming a non-adherent sludge that can be easily removed through regular blowdown procedures.
- Extend boiler life: By preventing scale formation and corrosion, EZE Treat helps extend the service life of your rig boiler, reducing the need for costly repairs or replacement.
- Improve efficiency: Proper water treatment ensures better heat transfer, optimizes energy use and lowers operational costs.
- Enhanced safety: A well-maintained rig boiler reduces the potential for failure. It ensures the crew and equipment that depend on the boiler for heat can do their jobs without interruption.
How to Implement Your Rig Boiler Treatment Program
To effectively manage water chemistry and protect your rig boiler, follow these steps to implement a comprehensive water treatment program:
- Water analysis: Conduct regular water tests to determine hardness, TDS, and pH levels. Our rig boiler test kit comes with all the reagents and test equipment you need to conduct regular water tests. When choosing a water source, you may want to consider a more detailed third-party analysis. For example, routine in field rig boiler testing would not identify high chloride levels—and chlorides can contribute to corrosion. Guardian Chemicals can screen water sources for you. Contact us to learn more.
- Treatment application: Once your water source has been screened for use and regular water testing is complete, you’re ready to treat the feed water. Add a rig boiler treatment, such as EZE Treat, to the water at the correct dosage.
- Monitoring and maintenance: Regularly monitor water parameters and adjust treatment as needed. Blowdown and re-treat rig boiler feed water as necessary and perform routine maintenance.
Conclusion
Rig boilers are an essential component of the oil and gas industry, playing a critical role in drilling operations. Optimizing performance requires an understanding of water chemistry and a comprehensive rig boiler water treatment program.
Scale formation and corrosion reduce efficiency and reliability. Worst of all, they shorten rig boiler life. By paying close attention to hardness, TDS, and pH, you can determine the right rig boiler treatment dosage and help prevent these problems.
When you’re ready, contact us. We’d be happy to discuss rig boiler treatment options and help train your staff to properly test, treat, and monitor your rig boiler treatment program.
