Gas Hydrate Prevention/Mitigation i work on a giant oil network and we have lots of gas lift wells for sure

coming with has hydrate problem during winter period. My client does not like inhibitor solution and they request me to propose other solutions. Gas lift gas is coming from Pressure and Reducing Station with 150bar, 2040 C and flow through Gas lift choke valve. Surely, due to Joule Thomson effect, temperature decreases and causing Gas hydrate. I prepared Hydrate formation curve for this composition. I have some mitigation/prevention solutions in my mind as follows;

*try to keep gas temperature as high as possible before choke flow by a) burying and insulating gas lift line. b) applying heat tracing for pipe piece from gas lift choke to well head. Very short piece. c) simulating a heat exchanger skid at Gas lift Gas source and see the result and cost.

The above points are all in my mind. If you have any other ideas that may mitigate/prevent this problem for gas lift system pls share with me. Please take into consideration that; 1) inhibitor option will not be accepted by the Client for now. 2) Reduced pressure value 150 bar (Station outlet pressure) is at limit and not possible to decrease further due to network hydraulic analysis and/or production performance curves belonging to production wells.

Cheers 4 days ago Like CommentFollow Flag More Ral Alcaide likes this 8 comments

Follow Matthew Matthew Guite I think you've got most of the things you can do listed. Only other option is to reduce water content so that you don't get free water in the gas lift pipe.

You also need to look carefully at start-up which is when hydrates often occur so may need some short term inhibitor injection for this period only (portable truck). 2 days ago Like

Follow Alper Alper Tasdemir Actually prevention of free water will come with absolute solution but it has been tried many times but no success on that:(( thanks Mathew 2 days ago Like

Follow Alper Alper Tasdemir So as not decrease pressure sharply at gas lift choke, I simulated a couple of pressure reducers at upstream to decrease that gradually. It gives a bit higher temperature result at gas lift choke outlet. What is your idea in that regard? Surely it does not make a big difference but sometimes even 1degc temperature difference has utmost importance not to touch hydrate formation curve. 2 days ago Like

Follow Matthew Matthew Guite It could have a minor, but critical impact so long as the temperature you experience after the pressure reducers is below ambient air /ground and hence you get some heat flow into the pipe.

The only other thing to help would be to split the flow into more smaller pipes so that the surface area per unit mass goes up and hence you get more heat back into the gas before you reduce in pressure again or it goes down the well. You just need to ensure you get the same internal square area of pipe or more when you reduce size, but increase number of pipes. Essentially a simple heat exchanger, but using pipes instead.

Not very elegant, but if they don't want to inject inhibitor then you need to do something else....

The other point is that hydrate curves are really a "zone" where some hydrate formation starts one side and then gradually increases as you pass it. It is not the case that loose 1 deg C and you hydrate and increase 1 deg C and you're OK. It's just not that precise.

2 days ago Like

Follow Alper Alper Tasdemir Matthew I agree that it is not that much precise but i believe that every small increase in temp will keep ourselves a bit far and far from critical zone.

I simulated what you proposed but i am a bit confused maybe i interpreted your idea wrongly bec As i know that when we increase surface area, temperature should decrease bec it is above ground and ambient temp is down to 0 to -5 decC in our case. It will directly effect fluid temp. Further, internal friction between gas particles will decrease that may result in temp decrease. What is your idea?

As per simulator; i took a gas lift line (belonging to the said Gas lift network) into consideration to see the results.

This line is 500 meters of pipe , Pinletgas -180kg/cm2, Tinlet gas-40degC and Pgas lift injection pressure at wellhead Must be 50 kg/cm2 as per optimized calculations. Internal diameter of gas lift line is 1.7inc and bare carbon seamless steel. Ambient temp 0 degC. Gas flow required for gas lift optimization 20Mm3/d. Panhandle correlation is applicable for this field. Water in the line is about 0.05% of total volume. Even i was considering the increase the water volume a bit more bec while fluid passes through choke valve while gas is cooling, water can give heat energy to gas as water has high heat capacity in comparison with gas.

pls see the results below; ***Initial-Current Case- RESULT-Ptemp after choke- 38.05 degC ***Scen 1- above ground-Install 2 pressure reducers (before GL choke valve) at every 200mRESULT-Ptemp after choke valve is -21.56 degC ***Scen 2- above ground-Install 4 pressure reducers (before GL choke valve) at every 100mRESULT- Ptemp after choke valve is -16.93 degC ***Scen 3- above ground-Split the flow into smaller pipes(3 loop lines having 0.567`` ID) having same internal surface area as i have at initial case(your suggestion)--- RESULT-Ptemp after choke valve is -61.85degC ***Scen 4- above ground-Reduce the pipe internal surface area (decreasing ID to 0.56inches) RESULT- Ptemp after choke is -35.45 degC

***Scen 5 - Buried- Initial case but buried at 1.5 m depth- RESULT-Ptemp after choke valve is -11.82 degC. ***Scen6- Above ground-initial case but water content is 0.08% instead of 0.05%. RESULT- Ptemp after choke valve is -7.29 degC. For sure i need to check well performance in case water content is increased slightly.

What is your idea? 2 days ago Like

Follow Paul Paul Docherty CEng IMechE FIET Have you tried an external water bath heater either prior or just after to counter act the Joule Thomson effect, 1 day ago Like

Follow Alper Alper Tasdemir Paul It is one of our option taken into consideration just after gas lift source. We have 6-7 GL sources. so my one option is to design 6-7 HExc for each source to increase the temp. We can not apply HExc skid for 250 GL wells individually. Enormous cost. 1 day ago Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate

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