Many oil production processes present a significant challenge to the primary separation and dehydration equipment designer and operator. Such processes include innovative production techniques, long pipelines, high-pressure transfer pumps, high shear mixers, gas-lift techniques, submersible production pumps, intermediate oil storage, batch processing methods, flow line pigging, and well treatment chemicals. Any combination of these production and processing techniques can produce an oil history that the equipment designer cannot and should not ignore. Furthermore, the nature of petroleum emulsions changes continuously as the producing field depletes and production methods change. Timely laboratory analysis can be used by the operator to effectively define the stability of the petroleum emulsion and determine the most significant destabilizing variables such as chemicals, viscosity, and shear energy. Numerous techniques are available to the equipment designers and operators to destabilize and resolve petroleum emulsions. These techniques include the traditional application of demulsifiers, temperature, and retention time as well as electrostatics including nontraditional methods of modulated or pulsed voltage control. Optimizing these numerous variables and techniques presents a significant and perpetual challenge for the designer and operator. This paper describes the characteristics of water-in-oil emulsions typically handled and resolved by electrostatic processes, including dehydrating and desalting. This overview describes the upstream production parameters affecting the nature and characteristics of crude oil emulsions and the processing variables influencing the effectiveness of traditional and nontraditional electrostatic processes. Several unique examples are presented to support the conclusions of this paper.