Re: BS & W , insoluble water and free water in Crude oil Desalting

Dear Prochem,

In desalting process , BS&W – Bottom sediment & water is being monitored in inlet and outlet of the desalter – Usually,BS&W gives total % of water present in crude oil – for example, if you are getting 0.5 wt % of BS&W in outlet of desalter,then it contains little amount of soluble water and rest is free water..usually..0.5 wt % of BS&W gives you 0.1 – 0.15 wt % of soluble water & rest is free water.There should be some laboratory testing method which can differentiate amount of soluble water present in BS&W in crude oil.

Regards,

Petro737,

Thank you very much for validating my understanding about these terms.

Although terms are basic but the concerns were raised due to similar terms used by the different disciplines.

I appreciate your inputs.

Regards,

Prochem

Dear Prochem

BS&W is usually reffered to volumetic flow percentage of water @ STD condition.
Insoluble water is the total amount of water ( excluding solved portion ) in your crude but in Act. Flow.
Free water is reffered to that portion of water you can seperate in seperators and etc. one other portion of water is solved in crude ( mostly depending on T and API of crude ) and another portion which is emulsified in the crude that needs electrostatic field and chemicals to be seperated

cheers

Salar