Corrosion Testing of Deepwater Tubing Materials under Extreme Pressure and Temperature Conditions

Abstract

Abstract Prediction and prevention of scale and corrosion at extreme high pressure and temperature (xHPHT) is important to reduce environmental risk, improve human safety, and for production security for Gulf of Mexico (GOM) ultra deepwater (UDW) oil and gas production. In order to develop the methodology and prediction models needed for xHPHT corrosion, scale formation, inhibition, and the next generation of fluid modeling, this research was funded by RPSEA to study corrosion and scale at extreme pressure and temperature. This paper presents the corrosion experimental work conducted at xHPHT and high total dissolved solids (TDS) conditions in both a static autoclave reactor and a flow-through apparatus. The corrosion behavior of different alloys used for deepwater production tubing in two types of synthetic brines which simulated two UDW well conditions were studied. Reliable and feasible apparatus and procedures were developed for the corrosion study at extreme pressure, temperature and TDS conditions. Vertical scanning interferometry (VSI) was explored and found to be a powerful tool for localized corrosion analysis of different surface shapes (e.g., flat or curved).