Effective Chemical InjectionManagement

Effective
Chemical Oilfield
Management
in 2021
Aims
The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed
summary of the current oilfield production
chemical management practices for land-
based fracked wells, and to provide a window
into the emerging trends that have developed
in recent years. This discussion is very timely
due to the extraordinary challenges that the
industry is facing: long-term low oil prices, the
skilled-labor shortage, and the COVID-19
pandemic. To offset the challenges, proven
technologies are emerging that are producing
greater uptime, lowering maintenance and
labor costs, while also reducing risk and
improving health, safety, and the
environment.
Page 1 of 35
©2021 Detechtion Technologies, All Rights Reserved
A Long History
Since oil was first drilled in the USA in 1859
the job of keeping oil and gas wells flowing,
the pumping equipment operating and the
pipework free and clear from blockages, has
been constantly evolving. Over the next 140
years, sophisticated chemical solutions have
been developed to meet these challenges. By
the middle of last century, the provision of
production chemicals has been primarily
outsourced by the production companies to
chemical service companies.
These companies not only supply the

chemicals, but also oversee the
implementation of chemical programs with
labor in the field. The primary interface
between the production companies and their
chemical suppliers has been the monthly
report, which is typically delivered as part of a
review meeting, with the operational leads for
the treated field.
Page 2 of 35
The Fundamentals
Effective oilfield chemical management
processes need to deliver:
the right chemical,
in the right dosage,
at the right time,
at the place where it is needed.
It would be easy to think that product
chemical management should be focused
mainly on the chemicals. However, as people
who are deeply experienced in chemical
management will explain, there are many
processes and systems that need to be in
place to allow the chemicals to do what they
are designed to do.
© Imperative Insights LLC, 2021
Figure 1 - Overview of chemical management elements
Page 3 of 35
Monitoring: field tests, laboratory tests of
field samples, production rates, chemical
usage, and equipment status and health.
Dosing Control: batch schedules, dosing

pump maintenance and setting, chemical
tanks, dosing lines, maintaining, and setting
local controllers and telemetry maintenance.
Supply Chain: chemical tank refills, batch

injections and an uninterrupted supply.
Health, Safety & Environment: chemical

handling practices, spill management, storage
integrity and training.
Financials: contract management, cost

control, invoice validation and payments.
Chemicals: chemical solutions that can

control corrosion, microbiological, scale,
paraffin, asphaltene, hydrates and other
issues.
Page 4 of 35
Primary Goal: Achieving
Production Security
The goals of a successful chemical
management program can be divided into
two primary areas that ensure production
security: flow assurance, and asset integrity.
Flow assurance concerns the chemical

programs needed to keep the oil and gas
production flowing.
Asset integrity concerns the chemical

programs needed to keep all the production
equipment operating efficiently, and not
leaking into the environment.
Goals & Chemical Solutions
Production & Security
Figure 2 - The Goals and Solutions of Chemical Management
Page 5 of 35
Where gas is being produced, it is sometimes
necessary to strip the production stream of
H2S before it can be sold. For example, gas is
passed through a treatment column and H2S
scavengers are injected to lower the H2S
concentration to below 10 parts-per-million
before it is allowed to flow into a production
pipeline.
Oil stimulants, descalers, wax dispersants,

flowback aids, pigging chemicals and other
treatments are considered oil services
additives or workover chemicals and might
also be provided by the supplier of the
production chemicals as part of a single
contract.
Operational Goals
When a chemical management plan is
established two foundation documents are
prepared that form the operational goals for
the oil and gas field. These are the dosing plan,
and the testing plan.
Page 6 of 35
Dosing Plan
The Dosing Plan, Continuous Dosing &
Batch Dosing
Continuous Dosing utilizes a small dosing

pump that draws from a storage tank and
feeds chemicals into the oil. The pump and
the tank are usually mounted on a chemical
bund or containment tank to prevent any
spillage of chemicals leaking into the
environment. As the name implies,
continuous dosing is designed to constantly
dose chemicals at the required volume
whenever the oil is producing in order to
achieve the desired parts-per-million of
chemical in the water or oil phase within the
production fluid (e.g. 100 parts-per-million in
the water phase).
Page 7 of 35
Batch Dosing uses periodic batch or slug
injections of chemicals to achieve the
minimum chemical dose in the bulk fluid. The
batch dosing is performed periodically, for
example twice weekly, weekly or monthly. At
each batch dosing, chemical is injected at the
base of the well’s vertical tubing. This area of
the well is subject to low flow as the
production fluid passes directly above this
point. Immediately after the injection, the
concentration of chemical at the base of the
oil is very high (e.g. 0.5%-4% chemical
concentration). Using the principle of bleed-
off, as the production fluid passes over the
chemical slug, it picks up chemical at or above
the minimum desired concentration (e.g. 100
parts-per-million into the water or oil phase).
Over time, the chemical slug at the base of
the well is slowly being diluted as the
chemical is being drawn into the production
flow.
Page 8 of 35
Eventually, the concentration reaching the
production fluid will drop to or below the
desired minimum concentration. Once this
occurs, a fresh batch or slug of chemical
needs to be injected into the base of the well.
The batch dosing schedule is timed so that
the concentration of chemical being bled into
the production fluid does not fall below the
minimum concentration.
Examples of how the dosing plan might be

applied to a specific well is as follows:
A particular well might have a small

production output and so the production
company might decide that it will be
batch dosed with a chemical to
simultaneously treat scale and corrosion,
and therefore this chemical should be
injected twice weekly.
Page 9 of 35
The chemical supplier will then perform
the chemical injection using a specialized
treater truck, that will pump the required
volume (e.g. half-gallon) of chemical down
a capillary line to the base of the well,
followed by five gallons of freshwater to
force it down.
At another well, the production company
decides that continuous chemical injection
is needed so a pump is fitted that daily
draws 3.2 gallons of corrosion inhibitor
from a 130 gallon local storage tank. The
chemical supplier is now responsible for
maintaining the chemical pump and
refilling the chemical tank as needed.
Figure 3 - Factors that contribute to calculating the correct dosing rate for each
chemical
Page 10 of 35
Preparing the dosing plan is commonly a
collaboration between the production
company and the chemical supplier’s experts.
However, it is the production company that
has the final sign-off on the plan.
The actual chemical volumes needed are
based upon the desired parts-per-million
calculated on the basis of the chemicals
needed in the targeted phase within the
produced fluid (oil phase or water phase).
As the well’s production rate changes and the
environmental conditions change, the types
of chemicals and the target parts-per-million
will change, requiring changes to the dosing
plan. Examples of changes that could cause a
change in the desired parts-per-million
include a change in the ratio of water to oil in
the produced fluid, or the well becomes
infected with bacteria.
Page 11 of 35
Therefore, the chemical program manager
will create a testing schedule that provides oil
sampling from representative oil-groups
within a field. Two to five wells might be
tested monthly, on a rolling schedule, that
share the same age, well-design, well depth
and underground rock formation. Like the
dosing plan, as the environmental conditions
change, the types of chemicals and the parts-
per-million will change, requiring changes to
the testing plan.
While not always written into the testing plan,
it is assumed that the chemical inventories in
each field storage tank used for continuous
injection will be recorded at least monthly.
This data is compared with the previous
inventory results and deliveries that have
occurred since the last inventory reading was
taken. This data is used to determine rate of
chemical injection and whether the tank
requires refilling before it runs out of
chemical.
Page 12 of 35
These measurements can also be used to flag
if the chemical tank is leaking or if a
continuous chemical dosing pump has
stopped working.
One of the challenges faced by field workers

in taking samples and tank level readings is
access to wells. Impassable roads due to rain
or local access restrictions mean that a well
might miss a reading. Additionally, the current
trend to feed many continuous dosing pumps
from a single chemical storage tank (e.g. at
well pads), has made the calculation of
individual well injection rates using chemical
tank levels impossible.
Page 13 of 35
Find, Figure & Fix
Successful chemical management is a
dynamic process of finding problems, figuring
out what corrective action is required, and
then fixing the problems. This cycle is
continuous and never stops. At the root of the
processes is a continuous flow of data from
various sources. When the source data is
combined, it provides a picture of the current
condition of the chemical management
program’s effectiveness at each well. The
quality and frequency of the data directly
influences the accuracy of the assessment.
Find
Field staff are constantly collecting oil, water
and gas samples, observing equipment
operations, reading gauges and recording
chemical tank levels. To the extent that the
well is automated, or has IoT installed, data is
being pulled from the recording systems and
reviewed.
Page 14 of 35
Additionally, in the event of a well being
brought down or failed, inspections are made,
and samples gathered in order to determine
current well health and /or the root cause of a
failure.
Figure
Once an assessment of each well’s chemical
program is made, the next task is to decide
any remedial actions that are required, using
the by-exception approach. The most
common actions include repairing failed
chemical dosing-pumps or changing the
chemical dosage rates and updating the
Dosing Plan. Other actions that might be
taken include conducting further testing to
detect trends or changing the type of
chemical that is being dosed.
Fix
Lastly, the remedial actions (the fixes) are
implemented and recorded
Page 15 of 35
Reporting and Cadence
The effort required to complete the cycle of

find, figure and fix requires a mix of skilled
and semi-skilled personnel. While collecting
samples, gathering field data (find) and
performing repairs (fix) can be performed by
labor with specialized training, the figuring
task needs specialized chemical and
engineering training and experience.
A balance between the labor involved and the
results needed to minimally manage the
chemical management program, has resulted
in an accepted industry-wide cadence of
monthly reporting. This has been the case for
over 70 years. This means that the find, figure
and fix cycle is linked directly to the reporting
cadence, where the monthly report from the
chemical management manager reports the
actions taken during the find, figure and fix
cycle over the previous month at a monthly
chemical review meeting held with the
relevant production company staff.
Page 16 of 35
Documentation
Before the advent of personal computers,

field data was recorded on paper tables and
charts in local field offices. By the early 1990s,
most of the field data records were being
recorded within computer spreadsheets –
now almost exclusively Microsoft Excel.
Direct field data is still largely still recorded on

paper-based ticketing systems. These might
be simply pocket notebooks or purpose
printed tickets. The data from the field tickets
are later entered into the master spreadsheet
when the field worker returns to their local
office. It is by reviewing this data that the
summary reports are prepared which are
provided to the oil and gas producer.
Page 17 of 35
Current Challenges
Figure 4 - Midland TX in the Permian Basin is one of the centers of O&G production
Despite the improvements that have been

made to chemical management processes
and practices over recent years, a number
of significant challenges remain.
Page 18 of 35
1. Opaque Processes and Data
Completing the data records about batch

deliveries, and other operations at the well
head such as recording tank levels and
chemical pump status, largely remain a matter
of trust. Batch delivery trucks for example,
typically use a single driver per truck who will
not only perform the batch treatment but also
write the event into a logbook and then hand
in the log at the end of the shift. Others then
transpose this data into spreadsheets. The
accurate measurement of tank levels requires
a field operator to get out of the vehicle and
line-up their eyes on the level in the sight glass
to prevent parallax errors. During poor
weather or in extreme heat, the temptation to
“guesstimate” is high. Again, the quality of the
work depends upon experience, training and
ultimately trust.
Page 19 of 35
It is common practice that the underlying data
that is collected by the chemical companies is
not routinely shared with the production
companies; only the calculated results are
reported. This makes it hard for the
production companies to determine if the field
processes being used for chemical
management are working or being followed
correctly.
2. Cost Containment
Labor is one of the major costs of running a

chemical treatment program. Skilled labor is
hard to find and keep. For example, truck
drivers are in demand all over the country. It
takes a special person to be a treater-truck
driver who is willing to not only drive the truck,
but also get out of the truck in all weathers,
and open farm gates, handle pumps, values,
and chemical PPE - perhaps 15 to 45 times per
shift.
Page 20 of 35
Overdosed chemicals mean that the chemical
program spend is greater than what is needed
to provide flow assurance or preserve asset
integrity. The most common area of concern is
manually matching the flow rate of
continuously dosing chemical pumps to the
slow decline in production fluid flow that
naturally occurs on every well. Of greater
concern are periods when chemicals are not
being dosed or dosed below the desired
minimum. Due to the typical monthly cadence
of chemical management reporting, it is
possible that a continuous chemical dosing
pump might have failed or its chemical storage
tank run dry for several weeks without being
noticed. Scale or corrosion product can build
up during this time and lead to shorted well-
life between workovers. If corrosion is allowed
to take hold for example, the cost of the
eventual workover will be high due to the
amount of equipment that will have to be
replaced.
Page 21 of 35
In severe cases, pitting corrosion can lead to
leaks where uncontrolled production fluid or
gas escapes into the environment.
3. Systemic Hazards
The oilfield is a hazardous work environment.

Field workers clock-up high amounts of
"windshield time" every year. They travel on
many unpaved, unlighted, unsigned roads;
many of them on private property. The oil and
gas fields are crisscrossed with many dual-lane
or even single lane public roads traveled by
trucks, cranes, and heavy equipment, pick-ups
with trailers and cars in all weathers. Figures
published in Feb 2019 for the Permian basin
show that the area had 11% of all the road
deaths for the whole state of Texas yet only 2%
of the population of the state live there.
Page 22 of 35
While the risks involved in performing
chemical management field activities are not
necessarily higher than the risks associated
with other field operations in the oil and gas
industry, the current practices use high
amounts of labor in vehicles. This exposes
workers during their daily activities to a known
high-risk activity.
4. Variable Information Quality

As stated earlier, the quality of the data
collected in the field is very dependent upon
the actions of the labor involved. Ongoing
training and keeping the workforce operating
at the highest levels of professionalism and
commitment are key. This is not always
possible to achieve and the current COVID-19
crisis has put severe strains on the existing
workforce as numbers are depleted due to
incapacitation or the need to quarantine.
These issues cause gaps in the field data and
inconsistency in the collected data.
Page 23 of 35
Solving Industry Challenges
The dramatic increase in the use of digital
technology by the population and in industry
has begun to touch the oil and gas industry.
The industry is increasingly connecting remote
well pump production controllers to the
internet and directly monitoring well processes
like gas-flares using IoT connected cameras
that use pattern recognition.
Three technologies, in particular, are being

deployed to address the industry challenges in
chemical management. These are mobile,
edge, and using IoT.
Mobile Applications
With the increase in power, connectivity, and

the ubiquity of mobile devices, mobile
applications are being used more frequently
for data collection across oil and gas fields.
Page 24 of 35
These devices are being used to collect data,
and the associated meta-data, then transmit
the data to backend systems for storage and
processing. While the numbers of applications
are still few, mobile based data collection has
become the standard for data collection in
chemical management where it is used. The
advantages that have been recognized are as
follows:
immediate data upload into cloud systems
for review by the program managers,
photographs in addition to text and
numeric data can be reported,
much greater transparency into process
operations using meta-data such as GPS,
timestamps, and user data (e.g. truck
treater operations),
route optimization is possible,
dynamic schedule planning is possible,
electronic work ticketing can be enabled,
Page 25 of 35
direct links can be made from the mobile
data to powerful backend systems (e.g. ERP
systems and cloud applications) that can
trigger automated alarms, notifications and
use artificial intelligence,
a significant increase in data quality and
reliability.
faster notification and response when
problems are identification, and
additional data can be accessed by the field
staff, on-site, on-demand.
Dosing Control at the Edge
Increasingly over the last three years local

chemical dosing pumps, used to deliver
chemicals continuously, have been slaved to
controllers at the edge. These controllers
adjust the parts-per-million of chemical
concentration, based on the flowrate of the
production fluid and the operational status of
the well.
Page 26 of 35
Edge controllers are connected to the internet
and summon help via alarms and alerts. While
most new wells are being fitted with edge
control devices, there is considerable activity in
retrofitting existing wells in order to access the
benefits:
Optimizing the chemical dosage by
eliminating the risks of overdosing or
underdosing by using proportional control
of the chemical dosing rate based upon
production flow.
Providing additional safeguards by
accurately measuring or using algorithms
to monitor the actual chemical volume that
is being dosed.
Allows remote monitoring of pump health
and status live and through alarms and
notifications.
Allows dosage set points to be changed
remotely reducing labor.
High-quality data collection.
Page 27 of 35
Faster notification and response when
pumping problems are identified.
Local and cloud data storage allowing
trending of pump control parameters.
Small, self-contained dosing systems are

beginning to appear that are being used to
replace batch dosing. These units contain
pumps, controllers, solenoid valves, and
chemical storage tanks and are capable of
delivering periodic micro-doses into the
production stream. The Cost-verses-benefit
analysis is dependent upon each well’s
situation, often contingent upon the
production return from the well and the
difficulty of dosing the well. While the primary
benefit of using these systems is to provide
flow assurance and asset integrity, each
operating unit removes scores of treater truck
movements per year which reduces a
systematic hazard.
Page 28 of 35
Internet of Things (IoT)
The most profound change to chemical

management over the last ten years has been
the introduction of IoT devices to replace
human data gathering. One of the first devices
to be introduced has been relatively low-cost
chemical tank level monitors that send
readings wirelessly into the cloud.
Cloud backend systems can then initiate
alarms and notifications. These devices
provide frequent remote monitoring of the
changing chemical inventory levels in field
chemical tanks. When first introduced, these
units had varying levels of reliability and their
readings were sometimes affected by
environmental factors. However, the issues
have largely been overcome by better design
and software improvements. Today, remote
tank-level monitors provide stable readings
and give reliable service.
Page 29 of 35
The advantages of using IoT devices for tasks
such as remote tank level monitoring include:
changes the frequency of inventory and

chemical dosing pump health reporting
from monthly to at least daily,
dramatically reduce "windshield time" and
lower workforce risks from systemic
hazards,
high reliability irrespective of the weather
conditions,
can be used for chemical delivery
validation,
automated alerts and notifications and
can be setup to provide automated
chemical reordering.
Data can be directly fed into other systems
like edge controllers and dashboards for
reporting, automated monitoring, and loop
control.
Page 30 of 35
Advantages can provide immediate
notification of environmental risks like
chemical leaking into a bund, and
frees-up field staff to perform other tasks.
The connection to the internet from other

devices like production flow meters, pressure
transducers and to the main well pump
controllers, is providing much richer
operational and contextual data that is being
included in the evaluations of chemical
management health and dosing control.
The digitization of data is also allowing

specialized chemical management dashboards
to be more widely used and integrated into
operational system dashboards as part of the
complete well information suite.
Page 31 of 35
Remotely accessible

Chemical Pump Control at
the Edge
Accurate indication of Flow
and Pump heath
Chemical Dosing
proportional to Production
flow
Remote
Chemical
Level
Containment Accurate and

Level Alarm reliable
positive
displacement
dosing pump
Chemical Dosing Automation
Winds of Change
Today, there are good working examples of all

the aspects of chemical management being
digitized: monitoring, dosing control, supply
chain, health, safety and the environment and
the financials.
Page 32 of 35
However, different oil and gas producers and
chemical vendors are moving at different
speeds. Many organizations are taking a very
regional or fragmented approach, based upon
a philosophy of local needs. However, the
organizations that have gained the most
benefits have approached digital
transformation in a more holistic,
organization-wide approach. These companies
have committed serious resources to upgrade
and developing the corporation-wide backend
structures necessary to allow data to move
throughout the entire business. In other
organizations, new technology is constantly
being trialed, but its effect is limited to local
improvements within the limited scope of local
operations – which is where the data stays.
Page 33 of 35
It is important to note that all the current
activity in the digitization of chemical
management is being driven by real-world
examples of better outcomes that are the
direct result of implementing digitization
projects. The experimental phase in this
evolution has passed into the growth phase.
Changing Relationships
In conclusion, it is important to understand

that the effect of real-time data being
collected, reported, and then shared between
the producers and their chemical vendors is
changing the nature of the relationships
between them. Thanks to digitization, never
before has so much data been shared in real-
time or in near-real-time. Data ownership is
now being written into chemical management
contracts, a fact that was unheard of only a
few years ago.
Page 34 of 35
For the production companies and the
chemical vendors alike, it is worth
remembering the lessons that have been
learned in other sectors of the economy: to
take advantage of the emerging technology,
the level of transparency and trust needs to be
higher and the digital connections need to be
deeper.
Page 35 of 35

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Effective

These companies not only supply the

Figure 1 - Overview of chemical management elements

Dosing Control: batch schedules, dosing

Supply Chain: chemical tank refills, batch

Health, Safety & Environment: chemical

Financials: contract management, cost

Chemicals: chemical solutions that can

Flow assurance concerns the chemical

Asset integrity concerns the chemical

Figure 2 - The Goals and Solutions of Chemical Management

Oil stimulants, descalers, wax dispersants,

Continuous Dosing utilizes a small dosing

Examples of how the dosing plan might be

A particular well might have a small

One of the challenges faced by field workers

The effort required to complete the cycle of

Before the advent of personal computers,

Direct field data is still largely still recorded on

© Imperative Insights LLC, 2021

Despite the improvements that have been

Completing the data records about batch

Labor is one of the major costs of running a

The oilfield is a hazardous work environment.

4. Variable Information Quality

Three technologies, in particular, are being

With the increase in power, connectivity, and

Dosing Control at the Edge

Increasingly over the last three years local

Small, self-contained dosing systems are

The most profound change to chemical

changes the frequency of inventory and

The connection to the internet from other

The digitization of data is also allowing

© Imperative Insights LLC, 2021

Containment Accurate and

Chemical Dosing Automation

Today, there are good working examples of all

In conclusion, it is important to understand

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