Multiphase Flow Assurance in Subsea Tiebacks

Abstract

Gas hydrate is one of the major plagues of gas wells in the industry, capital costs to prevent hydrate blockage in pipelines is an dissociation temperatures for the operating pressures. The model developed was tested on experimental data from the literature that mimics gas flow in subsea tiebacks to see its performance, and sensitivity analysis was carried out on the model. The model was also compared to some of the reviewed models using some statistical parameters and it performed better than the other models giving the lowest Relative Performance Factor of all the models it was compared to. Results from the model were used to plot a P-T profile that was overlaid on the P-T phase diagram for Hydrate formation. The data examined did not fall in the hydrate region but was at risk for hydrate formation and a nucleation window was defined for the system studied and proper remediation strategies for the prevention and management of hydrate formations were proposed.