Summary Gas hydrates pose a major threat for flow assurance. The shorter time span between crystallization and plugging requires constant monitoring and adequate remediation strategies. Completely preventing its formation with thermodynamic inhibitors such as monoethylene glycol (MEG) is the standard approach. Kinetic hydrate inhibition provided an alternate management strategy, allowing for significant savings in capital and operational expenditure. Despite the extensive validation of kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs), no systematic guidelines to qualify such chemicals are available in literature, which may hinder its proper application and create potential problems stemming from chemical cross-interaction or nonrepresentative testing conditions. In this paper, we describe the journey from initial laboratory work and fundamental molecular observations to the successful application of KHIs as the base hydrate management strategy in a giant gas condensate field in the Middle East. The many learnings TotalEnergies accumulated over decades of experience are explored. The testing protocols in static cells and flow loops developed in-house for KHI selection and field trials conducted to mature the technology are summarized in this paper. The most critical aspects of KHI qualification identified by the company over the course of decades were thermal stability under wellhead conditions, performance in flowing tests with memory effect, chemical compatibility with corrosion inhibitors (CIs), thermal stability at regeneration conditions when coinjected with MEG, and deliverability considering the partition between water and hydrocarbon phases. Identifying the main points to be considered, we compiled systematic guidelines for KHI evaluation, selection, and deployment as a hydrate inhibition strategy.
Mateen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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