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Excellant Wax
Excellant Wax
Excellant Wax
Outline
Flow Assurance in Statoil
What is wax and what problems may it cause? How to control wax deposition
Flow Assurance
Main deliverables/competence:
Process Separator Slug catcher Chemical Injection Package Fluid properties Rheology
Thermohydralic multiphase analysis System design Hydrate- and wax control philosophies Slug control Operational support Multiphase metering
Hydrate control
Emulsion control
Corrosion control
Scale control
Asphaltene control
Wax control
Multiphase equipment: Wellbore hydraulics Transient pipeline thermohydraulics Multiphase meter Multiphase pump
Flow assurance = safe, uninterrupted and simultaneous transport of gas, oil and water from reservoirs to processing facilities.
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Wax
Kristin-NJ/DR Wye - wax deposition and temperature profile after 600 h
0.005
70 60 50
Temperature [C]
Wax deposition Fluid temperature
0.004 0.003
40 30 20
0.002 0.001
10
0 0 20 40 60 80 100
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The future .
Arctic / harsh environment
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Outline
Flow Assurance in Statoil
What is wax and what problems may it cause? How to control wax deposition
What is wax?
Soft wax
Hard wax
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n-alkane
What is wax?
Natural constituents of crude oils and
most gas condensates
wax crystal
Typical wax content 1-15 wt% Mostly long chain n-alkanes Solubility strongly dependent on
temperature
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C7 C8 C9
9 - 2/10/2014
If so, where and how fast? How often do we have to pig the line? Is chemical assistance needed (wax
inhibitor)?
Key parameters:
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Wax deposition is describing the formation and growth of the precipitated solid on a surface, related to flow and transport process.
3 inch 2 inch
Flow loop
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6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
Temperature (C)
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n wax DM
n wax DM dC / dr dC / dT dT / dr
dC dC dT wax DM dr dT dr
mass flux of dissolved wax molecules towards the pipe wall density of solid wax molecular diffusion coefficient of dissolved wax molecules concentration gradient of dissolved wax in the laminar sub-layer solubility of wax components as a function of the temperature radial temperature gradient close to the wall
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dT/dr
Dissolved wax
Pipe wall
dC/dr
Velocity profile
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Wax depositon_Process
1. Transport to pipe wall 2. Inital wax layer formation 3. Growth 4. Aging
sites
or thin gel
Diffusion Dispersion
Fluid-solid interaction
15
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40
35 Temperature (C) 30
25 20
Temperature
10
5
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Commercial tools like OLGA, PVTsim Wax precipitation curve tuning developed internally Mutivariate analysis
3 Data Power and control Before tuning distribution unit After tuning
2.5
1.5
0.5
0 0
40
50
Temperature [ C]
The wax build-up profile in a pipeline can be reproduced using the OLGA (RRR) model.
.. but is hard to predict !
25 20
200 m wax
Rough. 0.5 - Diff. 7 - Shear C3 0.7 Rough. 1.0 - Diff. 2 - Shear tuning Rough. 0.5 - Diff. 6
The wax deposition profile can be reproduced by various combinations of model parameters:
220 210 200 190 180 170 160 150 140 130 120 110 100 Field Pressure Rough. 0.5 - Diff. 6
50
100
150
300
350
400
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Outline
Flow Assurance in Statoil
What is wax and what problems may it cause? How to control wax deposition
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3 m3 of accumulated wax ahead of pig Nearly stuck non-bypass pig in riser Now the line is pigged regularly with
optimized bypass pig
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Normally insulated (or heated) Prevents wax deposition and hydrate formation
3.
a) Low-wax gas condensates (Snhvit): Wax deposition will normally not be an issue b) Oils and waxy gas condensates: No general, proven way to control wax deposition Wax-repellent surface coatings?
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Outline
Flow Assurance in Statoil
What is wax and what problems may it cause? How to control wax deposition
Features
Kind of proven Gives no deposit profile Proven for single phase lines Gives axial deposit distribution Proven for temperature measurements Potential for deposit detection (utilize insulation effect) Local measurement Not fully qualified (WO 2009/051495) Deposit detection by response to heat pulse (utilize insuation effect) Local measurement
Pressure pulse
25 2/10/2014
Outline
Flow Assurance in Statoil
What is wax and what problems may it cause? How to control wax deposition
Vale Vale
Skirne
Heimdal
Statpipe Brae
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80
Normalized pressure drop, bar
70 60
Start-up waxy cond.
50
40 30 20 10 0
19.4.01
5.11.01
24.5.02
10.12.02
28.6.03
14.1.04
1.8.04
28 2/10/2014
2004 - 2008
- Foam pigging program - Stuck pigs
2008
Fill and soak operation Chemical dissolvant Very good effect in laboratory Only minor effect in field
2008 - 2010
- Foam pigging - Stuck pigs
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Heimdal Brae wax consists mainly of high molecular weight paraffins that are hard to dissolve. Supported by indications of high melting temperature (60 C +). Wax removal must be based on a combination of dissolution and break-down of the wax
deposit.
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2. High Friction Jetting Pig (HFJP) Well proven technology New application
Overall risk was evaluated together with our downstream partners, and the HAPP was chosen
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- Launch 1 off pig from Heimdal using condensate - Pig to be tracked through topsides down to riser hang-off - Pigging speed: ca 0.4 m/s
Finally SUCCESS ~10 m3 wax left in the pipeline (+/- 50%) Reduced from ~350 m3 Wax layer of ~1mm Reduced from up to 20mm
500m zone
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Learning
A main learning:
Consequences of changed operating conditions (e.g. new fluid composition) have to be carefully evaluated and wax control philosophy updated accordingly.
Heimdal WAT (C) WAX in STO (wt%) Volume rate (Sm3/d) 3,2 4,2 1000 Vale 24,6 7,3 700 Huldra Mixture -22,3 0,5 300 13,1 4,9 2000
Year
Mole% C1
Mole% C18+
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
76,91 77,91 78,39 78,76 79,72 79,89 79,53 79,45 79,30 78,65
0,928 0,406 0,280 0,173 0,098 0,036 0,017 0,009 0,007 0,004
485
65
549 418 346 290 226 189 166 146 132 122
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Thank you
2/10/2014