FMC Technologies, Inc. won a Spotlight on New Technology award for its InLine ElectroCoalescer, and was recognized at the 2016 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston on Monday, May 2. This prestigious award recognizes and honors innovative technologies in the oil and gas industry that significantly impact offshore exploration and production.

"We are proud to receive our thirteenth Spotlight on New Technology award from OTC," said FMC Technologies Chairman and CEO John Gremp. "We are thinking differently about how we design, develop and apply technology, and the InLine ElectroCoalescer is a good example of how we've taken a proven technology and adapted its application to deliver the best to our customers."

By using a compact in-line pipe configuration rather than the typical large vessel-type coalescer for the emulsification process, FMC Technologies' InLine ElectroCoalescer reduces the size and weight of the equipment by one-fourth to one-half of other electrostatic coalescers. It also reduces operator cost and increases primary separation capacity.

The compact, pipe-based technology uses a high-frequency, alternating current with high voltage to polarize, coalesce and enlarge water droplets, which can then be separated much faster in the downstream separation equipment. In older facilities, this results in debottlenecking, reduced demulsifier injection and decreased energy consumption of the heating system. For greenfield applications this means it can greatly reduce the size of the separator and the use of demulsifiers.