ABSTRACT

Wax deposition in the onshore and offshore pipelines is a common occurrence and typically hinders the transportation of oil and gas. Accurate prediction of wax deposition in multiphase flow is of great importance to develop economical prevention/remediation strategies. However, reliable field and experimental data is lacking to understand the deposition process. In this work, statistically reliable two-phase gas-oil stratified flow wax deposition data have been obtained using Garden Banks condensate and natural gas in a 52.5 mm large-scale multiphase flow loop under the pressure of 2.41 MPa. Unprecedented local deposit analysis in the circumferential direction provides insights to understand the deposition behaviour at various experimental conditions. From the overall deposit analysis, it is evident that both deposit mass and wax content increase as superficial gas and liquid velocities increase. In addition, the deposit mass per unit area and wax content have a strong correlation with the actual liquid velocity. The deposit mass and wax content increase in two-phase is more predominant compared to single-phase deposition. It should be noted that without proper understanding in multiphase deposition, utilization of the pseudo single-phase modelling with mixture properties for the two-phase deposition process can yield significant errors in the prediction of wax deposition.

Keywords:
oilfield chemistry, deposition, scale remediation, deposit mass, remediation of hydrates, hydrate inhibition, asphaltene remediation, production monitoring, data mining, upstream oil & gas
Subjects:
Well & Reservoir Surveillance and Monitoring, Production Chemistry, Metallurgy and Biology, Flow Assurance, Production logging, Inhibition and remediation of hydrates, scale, paraffin / wax and asphaltene, Precipitates (paraffin, asphaltenes, etc.)
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2018. BHR Group 2018 Multiphase 11
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