Exercise 12

Flow Assurance – Detecting presence of Hydrate,

Wax and Asphaltene

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What is Flow Assurance?

“The ability to produce and transport multiphase fluids from reservoirs to

processing plants in economically and technically feasible way"

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 Types of Flow Restriction

• Viscous Organics • Scales

– Paraffin Wax – Sodium Chloride
– Paraffin Wax & Asphaltene – Calcium Carbonate,
– Sand / Well Fines – Calcium Sulfate
• Hydrates – Iron Carbonate, Iron
• Emulsions – Sulfide, Iron Oxides (Black
Powder)
• Slugging
– Magnesium Hydroxide,
• Failed Mechanical Objects
– Magnesium Carbonate
– Barium Sulfate
– Strontium Sulfate

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Phase Envelop

Liquid
Pressure (psia)

Hydrate Wax Asphaltene

Vapor-Liquid

Temperature (oC)

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 Complex Phase Behavior
Secondary Solid and Liquid Phases

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Hydrate

• Hydrate
– Hydrates are ice-like crystalline structures formed by water and
stabilized by the presence of “guest” molecules, typically light gases
and hydrocarbons, within the lattice cavities.
– Hydrate form at pressures and temperatures commonly experienced in
natural gas and oil pipeline, and blockages can be caused when:
• A significant reduction in temperature is experienced (For
example, close to surface when a well is closed in)
• Due to Joule-Thompson cooling as gas passes through a choke
– Two primary type of hydrates:
 Hydrate I structure – typically formed from light gases
 Hydrate II structure – typically formed from heavy gases

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 Hydrate

• Hydrate
– Fluids with a particularly high methane or hydrogen sulfide content,
may form Type II hydrate at low pressure, but the Type I hydrate
may become the most stable at higher pressures.
– A unit cell of an hydrate I structure consists of 46 water molecules
surrounding 2 small cavities and 6 medium-sized cavities.
– The unit cell of hydrate II structure consists of 136 water molecules
creating 16 small cavities and 8 large cavities
– In hydrate I structure , the cavity size is such that it will only
accommodate molecules such as ethane and carbon dioxide.
– In hydrate II structure , it is assumed that the highest component that
it would accommodate is butane. (anything heavier is a non hydrate
former)
– The formation of structure depends on various aspects of guest gas
(gas absorbed).

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Hydrate

• Typical Hydrate Formation Curve

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 Hydrate

• Inhibitors
– The mechanism of hydrate Inhibition is that the inhibitor mainly
dissolves in the free water phase thereby reducing the fugacity of
water. As water is the principal component of gas hydrates, reducing
the fugacity of water reduces the tendency of hydrates to form.
– There are several methods for mitigating against hydrate formation:
• Flowline can be internally heated to raise the temperature above
that at which hydrate form
• The gas can be dehydrated in order to remove free water
• Injection of inhibitor fluids in solution that is the most effective
method of removing hydrate formation

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Hydrate

• Inhibitors
– User can analyse the effect of following inhibitor additions on hydrate
curves
• Methanol
• Ethanol
• Mono-Ethylene Glycol (MEG)
• Di-Ethylene Glycol (DEG)
• Tri-Ethylene Glycol (TEG)
• Salinity of Water
– Concentration specification
• Volume Percent
• Mole Percent
• Mass Percent

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 Hydrate

• Inhibitors
– Methanol is probably the most important inhibiting fluid
• Advantage: It makes hydrate formation thermodynamically
impossible under certain conditions
• Disadvantage: It is expensive, extremely toxic and volatile
– The hydrate model can explicitly represent all the inhibiting effects
including:
• Depression of hydrate formation temperature
• Depression of freezing point of water
• Reduction in vapour pressure of water
• Partitioning of water and inhibitor between the oil, gas and
aqueous phases

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Wax

• Wax
– Wax is a solid phase formed from the components of the oil that have
the highest melting points.
– The avoidance or remediation of wax deposition is one key aspect of
flow assurance
– The Wax Appearance Temperature (WAT) is the most difficult point on
the precipitation curve to measure, as it is theoretically the point where
the first infinitesimally small amount of wax is formed.
– WAT is strongly influenced by traces of the heaviest n-paraffins
presents in the oil.

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 Wax

• Wax Model
– There are two models for predicting wax appearance and precipitation:
• Multisoild
• Coutinho et al
– The Multisolid model has the following characteristics:
• It correctly predicts that the rate of wax deposition tends to
increase with falling temperature;
• It predicts that the mass of wax deposited does not increase
smoothly, but occurs in steps;
• It gives quite reasonable predictions of the wax appearance point
given a sufficiently accurate analysis of the oil;
• Like many other wax models it is very sensitive to the
characterisation method for the fluid. Different methods can give a
variation in WAT of up to 20°C;

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Wax

• Wax Model
– The Coutinho model has the following characteristics:
• It is predictive;
• It is based on high quality thermodynamic data for wax and oil
phases. Validated against data for a wide variety of diesel fuels, jet
fuels and crude oils;
• It uses the measured n-paraffin distribution when available, but has
estimation methods if not. Results are more accurate with the
measured n-paraffin distribution;
• It is designed to predict the amount of wax precipitated as a function
of temperature, in addition to prediction of the WAT;
– The Coutinho model is used in this application and has been
integrated with RKSA equation of state for the fluid phases.

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 Wax

• Wax Precipitation
– Above the bubble point there is a two-phase equilibrium between live
oil and wax. As the pressure increases the WAT increases slightly.
– Below the bubble point there is a three-phase equilibrium between
gas, oil and wax and the phase behaviour is far more complex.
Besides the effect of pressure, the n-paraffin solubility in the oil is
altered by the changing concentrations of light hydrocarbons in the oil
phase.
– A wax precipitation curve describes the amount of wax precipitated as
a function of temperature at a fixed pressure.
– The application is able to plot different wax precipitation curves for
different pressure.

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Wax

• Wax Precipitation

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 Wax

• Wax Deposition
– Deposition models predict whether a precipitated wax will deposit on a
surface e.g. pipeline wall.
– At high rates of turbulent flow, the observed deposition rate decreases
with increased flow as wax is mechanically sheared off the deposits on
the pipeline walls.

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Asphaltene

• Asphaltene
– Asphaltenes are polar compounds which are stabilized in crude oil by
the presence of resins.
– If the oil is diluted by light hydrocarbons, the concentration of resins
goes down and a point may be reached where the asphaltene is no
longer stabilized and it flocculates to form a deposit.
– The addition of light hydrocarbons such as Methane or injection gas
can increase the possibility of asphaltene flocculation.
– Flocculation may occur as the temperature increases. However, as the
temperature increases further the asphaltene become more soluble in
the oil.

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 Asphaltene

• Factors for Asphaltene Deposition

– Composition (Asphaltene content)
– Pressure
– Asphaltene and resin concentrations in the reservoir fluid (Resin
asphaltene ratio)
– Electro-kinetic effects induced by streaming potential generation
during reservoir fluid flow.
– Temperature
– Water-cut
– pH concentration (Acidic & basic fractions)

Adhesion Cohesion
Fluid flow

Tubing

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Asphaltene

• Asphaltene model
– The asphaltene model is based on the RKSA equation of state with
additional terms to describe the association of asphaltene molecules
and their stabilisation by resin molecules.
– A SARA analysis provides the relative amount of components that are
Saturates, Aromatics, Resins and Asphaltenes.
– Ideal model input would be as follows:
• Compositional analysis of the oil;
• Bubble point to “tune” the petroleum fraction properties;
• The wt% of asphaltene in the oil, and the resin to asphaltene ratio ,
often determined from a SARA characterisation;
• One set of conditions of asphaltene flocculation of the live oil or
titration with heptanes of stock tank oil;
– The resin/asphaltene ratio can be estimated by the characterisation
procedure in this application.
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 Flow Assurance Calculations in ReO / WellFlo

• Alliance with Infochem Ltd, UK

– Hydrate, Wax and Asphaltene modules available in their “Multiflash”
Software
– Customer base : Around the world including many multi-national
companies
• Implementation in ReO and WellFlo
– Available as a post-processor after optimization (ReO) and nodal
analysis / pressure drop calculations (WellFlo)
– Available for Compositional as well as Black oil PVT
• Black oil PVT data will be translated to compositional form

– The in-situ fluid composition will be used for the calculations

• ReO and WellFlo will be seamlessly linked to these modules
• No need to copy & paste data to and from another applications

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Example: Hydrate
• Open Exercise 12-1.wflx
• Go to Analysis> Operating point. Click Calculate
• Click Flow Assurance

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 Example: Hydrate

Hydrate will form at 550.5 ft

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Example: Hydrate - Addition of Inhibitor

• Go to Inhibitor tab and add Methanol ( 5%, 10% and 15% by

volume). Click Calculate.

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 Example: Hydrate

• Fluid Description
– The enhanced fluid
composition is the modified
compositional version of
original fluid and is used for
hydrate calculation

Black Oil

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Example: Hydrate

• Enter Water/gas ratio of 600,

650 and 700 STB/MMSCF
• Select Sensitivity 1 as
Water/gas ratio.
• Hit Apply and Calculate
• Now click on Flow Assurance

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 Example: Hydrate

• Click Sensitivities.
• Select the sensitivity
value and click Plot.
• New plot will be
displayed.

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Example: Wax

• Open Exercise 12-2.wflx

• Go to Analysis> Operating point. Click Calculate
• Click Flow Assurance
• Go to Flow Assurance> Wax
• Enter Total Wax Content = 4.3 % Mass

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 Example: Wax

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Wax Precipitation Plot

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 Example: Asphaltene

• Continue Exercise12-2.wflx. Go to Flow Assurance>

Asphaltene
• Enter the following:
– Resins = 0.3 % Mass
– Asphaltene = 0.01 % Mass

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Example: Asphaltene

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 END OF EXERCISE 12

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