Anyone have a desalinator? BP says that if you remove salt from
water used to loosen offshore rock, you get more oil. Above, BP
and ExxonMobil's Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Today’s oil drilling technology often leaves a lot of petroleum
behind. It’s something like mopping up a flood with a household
sponge. Offshore operations capture only a third of the oil
sitting in the sandstones of the world’s sea beds, according to
oil giant BP. So BP is doing something about it at its Clair
Ridge site west of Scotland’s Shetland Islands, where it is
deploying a new “waterflooding” technique that it claims will
boost the output considerably. Waterflooding itself is not new.
Offshore operators typically inject salt water into the
sandstone to help push oil and gas toward the well. But BP says
that if you first remove salt from the water, a lot more oil
will flow. Where oil and water don't mix. BP is deploying its
desalination technology west of the Shetland Islands, in the
upper left hand corner of this