Replacement of the traditional thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors (methanol and glycols) in multiphase
applications is highly desirable for Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) considerations and for investment
costs savings.
Low Dose Hydrate Inhibitors (LDHI) are good candidates to achieve this objective and their interest is
growing in the E&P industry. There are two types of LDHI: the Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors (KHI) and the
Anti-Agglomerants (AA) also called dispersant additives.
The main challenge with LDHIs is that they require the unprocessed effluents to be produced inside the
hydrate stability zone. It is then of the utmost importance to select, qualify and implement properly LDHIs,
so that their field deployment is performed with success.
But due to the very stochastic nature of the nucleation step, the hydrate crystallisation process leads to very
large discrepancies between performances results carried out at lab or pilot scales.
In order to overcome this difficulty, we have developed an in-house special protocol which is implemented
prior to each qualification tests series. This in-house 15 years old protocol consists in conducting each tests
series with a fluids system having previously formed hydrates in a first step but followed by a dissociation
step at moderate temperature for a few hours.
This paper presents results selected from several field cases studies and obtained from our 80 bara and 165
bara flow loops. They show the very good reproducibility obtained with and without LDHIs.
In the case of KHI, where the stochastic nature of the nucleation step is very critical, the results show that
the deviation on the “hold time” for a given subcooling is less than 15%. (Revised version of ICGH paper 5499_1)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/1069 |
| Date | 07 1900 |
| Creators | Peytavy, Jean-Louis, Glénat, Philippe, Bourg, Patrick |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Glénat, Philippe |
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