Environmentally-friendly multifunctional production chemicals for zero marine pollution

Oil and natural gas will still be used for many years to come. Therefore, it is important to produce it in an environmentally-friendly way. There are a number of problems that can influence the safe transport of the fluids from the well and through long flow lines. Probably the most damaging issue to deal with is the formation of an ice-like substance called ?gas hydrate? which forms from water and gas in the flowline. Unlike real ice, it can form above zero Celsius under pressure. If enough of this gas hydrate forms it can block the flow line. A second production problem is due to the hardness of the produced water, caused by dissolved salts. These salts can deposit as solids, called ?scale? which can also block the flowline. The third water-related problem is corrosion, caused by the presence of water, salts and carbon dioxide. Bad corrosion problems can lead to a leak in the pipeline, which is dangerous and cause damage for the environment. To avoid these three water-based problems, the oil company usually uses chemical treatment with inhibitors. These chemical must be effective, affordable, non-hazardous, environmentally-friendly and compatible with each other. The problem today is that it is very hard to find products that fit all these requirements. It is the object of this project to fill this technological gap. Between the Universities of Stavanger, Norway and Kazan, Russia, we have identified classes of chemicals which are environmentally-friendly and which can combat all three water-based production problems. The work in this project has been a collaboration of the synthetic skills and test equipment at the two universities to develop a product, which will have the combined properties of all three inhibitors. This also means only one injection line is needed. The new green multi-product will give considerable cost-saving. (NB. As of today, there is no collaborative activity between the universities, mainly due to the Ukraine war). In the first year we have concentrated on finding a single chemical that can combat hydrate and corrosion - and we have made very good progress. We used a cheap low-toxicity polymer as the starting material that has great flexibility to be tailored for the three oilfield applications. An optimised chemical has now been tested both in Norway and Russia and gave similar performance to commercial hydrate inhibitors designed for this problem alone and has almost as good performance as a commercial corrosion inhibitor. We have now started tailoring the chemical to combat the third and final problem, scale formation. Recently, we have learned that corrosion problems can be better attacked by mixing our chemical with a synergist. And the third problem, scale formation, can be attacked by refining the structure. The results were presented at the foremost petroleum conference for chemicals in the world, namely SPE Oilfield Chemistry, Texas, July 2023.

We have given greater understanding to the area of maleic polymer chemistry as well as understanding factors that make high performance multi functional or combinatorial inhibitors for hydrate, scale and corrosion control. We have not been in touch with KFU, Russia for ca 18mths so we are not aware of the recent progress they have made. Norway does not have the infra-structure in the chemical industry to commercialise our new products. We have entered into a collaboration with an indian company that has made several prototype products which have been tested successfully at UiS Norway. The next stage is sampling to oilfield service companies for field testing.

Every year, the production and transportation of oil and gas in the Barents Sea is increasing in volume and scale. The main countries that are actively working in this region are Norway and Russia. Geological data show a great prospect for field development in the Barents Sea. So in the Barents Sea, about half of the hydrocarbon reserves of Russian shelf deposits are concentrated. The increase in oil and gas production and transportation in the Barents Sea, of course, increases the risks of marine pollution associated with the activities of petroleum companies. To prevent major environmental disasters, today it is necessary to monitor and minimize possible environmental impacts. Several widely spread causes of accidents in pipelines during the operation by oil and gas companies are equipment corrosion, hydrates formation and scaling. The last two leads to pressure drop in pipelines, plugging the flow and possible blowouts and emergency situations, which result in sea environmental pollution. The easiest way to minimize risks is to use oilfield inhibition reagents that prevent corrosion, hydrate formation and scaling. To date, oilfield reagents have been developed to solve each of these problems separately, and they show good efficiency. Inhibitors are used in almost all exploited fields. However, many of them are toxic and do not decompose (biodegrade) in the marine environment. A large volume of these reagents are required today in production and transportation procedures of oil and gas. Also, they should be injected using different injection points due to incompatibility issues, since they can negatively affect each other and reduce efficiency. Future development of new fields will lead to an increase in the use of oilfield chemicals and result in the emergence of additional environmental risks. New multifunctional and environmentally friendly production chemicals can be a solution of these problems.