Muliphase flow: how engineers control and separate mixtures

From the brutal heat of the desert to the unforgiving ice of the Arctic Circle, engineers are venturing into increasingly harsh environments to recover oil and gas from marginal reserves. Much of these energy streams come in the form of ‘multiphase flows’. This is where liquid and gas are in the stream at the same time. It also describes liquids in which solid particles, such as sand and silt, are suspended.

Multiphase flows are becoming common with marginal hydrocarbons where engineers need to create mixtures capable of extracting oil and gas in low-pressure environments. Around 70 per cent of the world’s remaining oil reserves are believed to be in the high-viscosity, or ‘heavy’, category. Most are produced and transported as multiphase flows, usually as a mixture of gas, heavy oil and water. In some cases, multiphase flows are created when sand and chemicals are blasted into rock to free oil and gas.