Case Study: Middle East Heavy Oil Production Company saves millions by preventing desalter downtime with SLB Process Live

Proactive Diagnosis of Damaged USD 1 Part on Desalter Power Unit Saves Processing Facility Millions

SLB helped the Middle East Heavy Oil Production Company address desalter downtime at a Middle East onshore heavy oil facility facing wide temperature and production swings, high-salinity brine, and limited local technical support. The site needed to produce on-spec oil with BS&W below 0.5% and salt content below 10 lbm/1,000 bbl, but the operations team lacked familiarity with the newly commissioned electrostatic treater technology.

Using Process Live Uptime Assurance and Process Live Process Optimization, SLB integrated equipment data, live process measurements, and domain expertise to remotely detect a voltage imbalance in one treater within a week of deployment. The issue was traced to a damaged internal connector that cost only USD 1 to replace, preventing potential treater damage and production slowdown while avoiding any loss of production and saving the facility from costly downtime.