Hydrates in petroleum production - Assessment of Plug Risk

During transport of oil, gas and water in pipelines, solid gas hydrate plugs may form when the conditions are within the thermodynamic range of stability of natural gas hydrates. The cost of hydrate prevention is often a project stopper for small field de velopments. However, the presence of oil or condensate has a mitigating effect, in the sense that hydrate formation becomes slower and less aggressive than in a gas/water system. In extreme cases, transportable hydrate dispersions are formed. These positi ve effects should be taken into account during development and operation of oil fields. The HYPERION project aims at the development of an algorithm for assessment of hydrate plugging risk. This requires determination of components and the mechanisms of inhibition, with regards to anti-agglomeration and increased induction time for hydrate formation. Understanding the surface energies and wetting properties of the hydrates, which controls induction times and whether the particles reside in a dispersed fo rm in the oil phase or as agglomerating, growing plugs, are central to the aim of the project. This understanding must be integrated with a model describing the impact of flow on the growth and agglomeration of the hydrate particles. To cover all aspects , an interdisciplinary approach is required, combining petroleum chemistry, physical chemistry and physics, and computational fluid dynamics. This is assured by the participation of the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics and Technology at the University of Bergen, in close cooperation with the hydrate research group at Norsk Hydro Research Centre in Bergen. Three PhD students will work on different aspects of the project, and two post-doc researchers will expand and integrate the result s together with the senior researchers, to give the final risk assessment algorithm. International cooperation is integrated into the PhD student programs.