Production equipment must be durable, robust, and efficient to process well stream products and economically provide oil and gas for initial sale. Cimarron has a complete line of equipment to handle the wide variety of operating conditions and offers solutions for low or high pressure, solids removal, vapor-liquid and liquid-liquid separation and emulsion treating.
With several ASME code facilities in Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas that are US certified to build and refurbish/repair pressure vessels, Cimarron has the capacity and geographic reach out to most major US basins.
Production equipment must be durable, robust, and efficient to process well stream products and economically provide oil and gas for initial sale. Cimarron has a complete line of equipment to handle the wide variety of operating conditions and offers solutions for low or high pressure, solids removal, vapor-liquid and liquid-liquid separation and emulsion treating.
With several ASME code facilities in the US certified to build and refurbish/repair pressure vessels, Cimarron has the capacity and geographic reach out to most major US basins.
Sand Separators
Solids removal prior to initial separation has become an increasing need with the trends in hydraulic fracturing across the U.S. shale basins. Silica sand, fracturing sands, proppants, and other debris are commonly returned to the surface in the initial production phase of shale wells. Our sand separators protect our customer’s investment in downstream processing equipment and reduce the damaging effects of solids on high pressure piping and vessels. Cimarron has provided thousands of these high pressure solids separators to operators across the U.S., from the Permian Basin to the Rockies to the Marcellus/Utica shale basins in the Northeast.
Cimarron designs and manufactures a variety of sand separator sizes and pressure ratings – from 16” OD x 8’ to 30” OD x 10’, with pressure ratings of 3,000 PSIG to 10,000 PSIG. For ease of transport and installation, the units are installed on an “L-skid” and Cimarron often provides manifold piping according to the operator’s needs and operational configuration.
Indirect Line Heaters
Cimarron designs and manufactures indirect water bath heaters and line heaters to heat gases or liquids safely in a variety of sizes and with a number of customer preferred options. Applications include:
- Heating natural gas prior to separation and pressure reduction
- Â Prevention of hydrates before pressure reduction at distribution city gates
- Â Heating of gas during transmission stages
- Â Controlling separation temperatures of gas and liquids to increase the efficiency of separation and prevention of hydrates
- Â Heating of water for water jacket applications
- Heating of heavier crude oils for easier processing and fluid movement
The principal benefit of indirect heating is that the combustible fluids are heated in a non-combustible fluid and separate from the firetube, in many cases a glycol/water mixture. The fluids are contained in a designed coil bundle comprised of multiple passes and paths and have no direct contact with the heat media that provides the necessary heat transfer area to meet the specific conditions required. Both heat transfer area and mixture velocities, which vary depending on the composition, pressure and temperature conditions, are key factors in the design of the coil bundle. The heat supplied by the firetube to the heat media is modulated by temperature measurement in the product stream to ensure that the customer specifications are achieved.
Cimarron regularly manufactures heaters ranging from 100,000 to 4 million Btu per hour. Our custom engineered designs allow for a number of options to meet the varying requirements of our customers.
Gas Production Units
Cimarron’s separators and gas production equipment have become an industry standard for wellhead consolidation, pad footprint and flow-line reduction, installation and production efficiency, at lower capital and operating costs.
- Â Reduced footprint & installation costs
- Â Skid-limit design
- Â Pressures to 1440 PSIG
- Â Two and three-phase
-  Separators are typically 20” to 42” outside diameter
- Â Enclosed cabinet available for challenging operating environments
- Â Extensive product line including integrated sand separators and line heaters
Cimarron’s standard Gas Production Unit (GPU) is comprised of a split-pass coil indirect heater containing a gas-fired natural draft burner, a pre-heat and expansion coil bundle, followed by a two-phase or three-phase separator typically operating above pipeline pressure. The process heat reduces the risk of gas hydrate formation associated with large pressure drops and ensures effective separation through the control of pressure and temperature. The equipment is enclosed within a skid-mounted cabinet, allowing for ease of installation and operation while minimizing the equipment footprint and space requirements. The indirect heater is designed in accordance with API 12K standards, while the separator design is based on recommendations of the Gas Processors Suppliers Association (GPSA).
Cimarron-designed production units can be customized to address specific needs with respect to the number, size, and positioning of the separation vessel. While the number of separators is related to the number of producing wells on a multi-well pad (allowing volume measurement for individual wellstreams), the positioning is largely dependent on the gas-oil ratio. Horizontal units are typically preferred in liquid rich production streams, while vertical separators are utilized when there is relatively little liquid in the production stream. Cimarron has regularly designed and manufactured production units capable of processing two to five wellstreams simultaneously.
In the design phase, we carefully size the preheat coil, choke, and expansion coil depending on well conditions. Typical coil ratings are 5,000 PSIG, but the advent of deeper drilling and the extension of laterals has resulted in the need for even higher coil ratings. Cimarron now frequently manufactures coil bundles with ratings of 10,000 PSIG. We use actual well conditions and process simulation to determine the number of passes for the preheat and expansion coils in order to provide the appropriate surface area for heat transfer. Maximum allowable working pressure of the separator vessel is typically 1,440 PSIG.
Standard Features of Cimarron GPU’s
-  Indirect Heater — API 12k with removable firetube
- Â Natural draft burner with flame arrestor
- Â Hinged stack for transport with bird screen
- Â Removable split-pass coil bundle with choke
- Â Supply gas system with gas preheat coil, supply gas scrubber, burner and pilot controls and emergency shut-off
- Â Two or Three Phase Separator, with drain, pressure relief, level controllers, dump valves and high/low shutdown
-  Separator internals — weir bucket or interfacing style with mist extractor & baffles
- Â Meter tube with junior or senior type orifice fittings
- Â Integral skid and walk-through cabinet
- Â Cimarron ARC ignition system
- Pressure relief, temperature and level gauges, and other necessary instrumentation
Option and Accessories for Cimarron’s GPU’s
- Â Sales line scrubber pot with level control and high level
- Â Fire retardation system
- Â Outside access cabinet for smaller footprint
- Â Customer specified burner management system
- Â Additional flash separator
- Â Motor actuated chokes
- Â Custom features as required
- Â Vane Packs
- Â Sand Removal Manifold and sand separators
- Â Rupture disk
- Â Pneumatic filtration
- High-low pressure pilot emergency shutdown
Separators (2ph, 3ph, vert., hor.)
Cimarron separators have long been the “workhorse” of upstream processing, utilizing differing densities and properties of production streams to separate oil and gas from produced water and solids. Cimarron’s separators rely on proven internal designs which optimize momentum, gravity, and coalescence for effective separation. We can supply a full line of appropriately sized separators, including two-phase (separation of liquid from the vapor stream) or three-phase (separation of oil, water and vapor), manufactured as horizontal or vertical vessels.
Cimarron separators come in a variety of sizes and pressure ratings, dictated by the specific well conditions of each operator. Cimarron has manufactured horizontal units up to eight feet in diameter and twenty feet in length, and vertical units six feet (6’) in diameter and sixteen feet (16’) in height. Separator design is governed by standard API 12J.
Cimarron’s Horizontal Separators
Cimarron offers two core designs for horizontal separators: a weir bucket design, allowing the oil and water to be segregated into different compartments for removal; and an “interfacing” or “spillover” design which can handle higher liquid flows by utilizing the entire vessel area for separation. Our separators include inlet deflectors and internal baffles to minimize turbulence as well as a mist extractor on the gas outlet.
Cimarron’s Vertical Separators
Vertical Separator Cimarron also designs and manufactures vertical separators for use with higher gas-oil ratio wells. Like horizontal units, vertical separators contain inlet diverters and coalescing equipment (mist extractors, vane packs) but less liquid treating internals due to the typically lower liquid volume.
Oil Treating
Cimarron treaters have always provided an integral and cost effective means of applying heat to assist in the separation of oil and water. Cimarron treaters generate increased temperature in order to reduce the stability of emulsions by increasing droplet diffusion, reducing phase viscosity, and disturbing the interfacial film through changes in surface tension. Our direct-fired heater-treaters use a standard gas-fired burner with the fire tube directly in the product stream.
Cimarron’s oil treater products include a variety of designs. We design and manufacture traditional heater-treaters in both vertical and horizontal styles and customize these to meet the operating requirements of our customers. Cimarron has extensive experience in designing units for colder climates, where interior piping or insulated exterior piping is required. We often provide gas domes in horizontal units to help protect against liquid carryover when the potential for slugging exists. Many of our customers prefer Cimarron treaters since the water or oil/water interface level can be changed using adjustable weirs or adjustable water legs (vertical units). Cimarron regularly manufactures heater treaters in four (4’) to eight (8’) foot diameters and lengths ranging from fifteen (15’) to forty (40’) feet, with maximum allowable working pressures ranging from 75 PSIG to 250 PSIG.
Direct-fired oil treaters
In operations where higher inlet pressures exist, Cimarron provides oil treating equipment that combines the internals of an oil treater with an indirect heater. These direct-fired units are used where the wellstream pressure is higher than that recommended for direct-fired heater-treaters and the wellstream requires heating prior to pressure reduction to avoid hydrate and paraffin formation. In our design, the production stream at wellhead pressure enters a coil tube bundle placed in the treater vessel using the heated well fluid as the heat transfer media. The heated production stream is subsequently reduced in pressure and introduced into the vessel for emulsion treating and separation. Gas domes are typically employed in these two or three-phase treaters, allowing for greater liquid/liquid separation capacity, protection from slugging, and sufficient area for vapor separation. Clean liquid/liquid separation is enhanced through the use of separate oil and water weir chambers at the control head of the vessel.
High-Low Pressure Separators
Cimarron also manufactures a full line of “High-Low Pressure Separators”. Commonly used in U.S. shale fields, the high/ low pressure (HLP) separator combines the benefits of a higher-pressure, two-phase separator with a lower-pressure, three-phase treater. In our design, the production stream is heated using an internal coil and the heated well fluid itself as the heat transfer media. The heated production stream then enters a higher-pressure, two-phase vessel (typically 400 to 1,000 PSIG) on top of the unit for the initial gas/liquid separation. The liquids are then introduced into the lower-pressure, heated separator (treater) for liquid/liquid separation. The primary benefit of this Cimarron model is that the off-take gas can be delivered at higher pressure for metering and transmission and avoiding the need for wellsite compression. At the same time, the liquids are treated at a much lower pressure to achieve effective separation and to reduce emissions from the atmospheric storage tanks. Like the direct-fired units, clean liquid/liquid separation is enhanced through the use of separate oil and water weir chambers at the control head of the vessel.
Storage Tanks
Cimarron provides above-ground API 12F storage tanks for the oil and natural gas exploration and production industry, as well as the associated walkways and stairways needed to access the top of tank batteries.
The most common tanks sizes include:
- 210 bbl – 10’x15′
- 300 bbl – 12′ x 15′
- 400 bbl – 12′ x 20′
- 500 bbl – 12′ x 25′
- 500 bbl – 15’6″ x 16′
- 750 bbl – 15’6″ x 24′