SPE Projects, Facilities & Construction
Volume 5,
Number 2,
June 2010,
pp. 49-57
Summary
Conventional practices for estimating the amount of deposited wax in
pipelines are usually based on predictions made with simulation packages using
limited stock-tank-oil (STO) deposition data collected under laminar-flow
conditions in bench-scale flow loops. Such practices are conservative and often
lead to nonoptimal designs of pipelines and surface facilities. For optimized
designs, laboratory-scale deposition measurements made under realistic
conditions are required to calibrate flowline models. In this work, a
high-pressure deposition cell that operates on the Taylor-Couette (TC) flow
principle is used to generate more deposition data with live reservoir fluids
under turbulent flow similar to the conditions encountered in many flowlines.
The analogy between TC flow and pipe flow is explained, and a scalability flow
chart for linking the laboratory-scale deposition data from TC configuration to
pipe configuration is presented. Through a case study, the scaled-deposition
data are then used to tune a wax-deposition model in the OLGA®5 simulation
package. Next, the tuned model is applied to predict wax deposition under
actual production and transportation conditions. The importance of tuning the
deposition models with live fluid data under turbulent-flow conditions is also
shown by comparing results obtained from conventional dead-oil low-shear
data.
© 2010. Society of Petroleum Engineers
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History
- Original manuscript received:
7 July 2008
- Meeting paper published:
22 November 2008
- Revised manuscript received:
26 May 2009
- Manuscript approved:
22 June 2009
- Published online:
10 June 2010
- Version of record:
10 June 2010
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