Cost effective management of hydrates and wax with LedaFlow

Offshore oil and gas developments in arctic regions present substantial challenges for safe but yet cost effective operations. Predicting and managing hazardous formation of hydrates and wax that could potentially block the pipelines is key. Since measurements are scarce on subsea equipment in general and pipelines in particular, this can only be achieved through improved predictive models used in all phases of a development from design and all the way to real-time decision support systems give while a the field is in production. The project's primary objective is to bring a fundamentally new framework for simulating the effects of hydrates and wax precipitation and transport in multi-phase flows to the market. This framework has the unique capability to predictively simulate formation, deposition and transportation of hydrate and wax particles themselves, and it takes into account how the flow's viscosity will be afftected by them. Combined into Kongsberg's existing software suite, this framework will improve the understanding of these phenomena so that demanding fields can be developed and operated reliably to a lower cost. Successful piloting and validation of the new models and functionalities is crucial to properly secure confidence in the results these models predict. Therefore, this project includes a thorough pilot study in order to confirm the applicability, accuracy, robustness, simulation speed and user-friendliness of LedaFlow® with the new functionalities. The field chosen for the pilot study is similar to a typical arctic gas condensate development. The project has four partners: TOTAL, LedaFlow Technologies DA, SINTEF, and Kongsberg.

Essential improvements to the Wax and Hydrate model framework in LedaFlow. Added Sand transport model and viscosity models to LedaFlow. The results have improved the industry confidence in the LedaFlow wax and hydrate models applied to industrial relevant cases.