On the economic impact of wax deposition on the oil and gas industry

Abstract

• Wax deposition blockages are known as a billion-dollar problem in the O&G industry. • A case-specific methodology for assessing its economic impact was developed. • The economic impact of wax deposition has an annual expected value of 47.62 billion USD. • The annual economic impact might range from 14.74 to 330.59 billion USD. Partial and total blockages due to wax deposition in wells and pipelines gather consensus as a billion-dollar problem in the oil and gas industry. However, an exact quantification is still required for production shifts towards heavy and paraffinic oils, extreme climate regions, and ultra-deep offshore oilfields. Motivated by such a problem, this research endeavour developed a case-specific methodology for assessing the economic impact at stake based on state-of-the-art methodologies. It is deemed to perform meta-analyses upon the current scientific and technical literature. It has been found that the economic impact of wax deposition has an expected value of 47.62 billion USD/year and may oscillate between 14.74 and 330.59 billion USD/year. Moreover, the upper bound is deeply influenced by the costs of potential environmental impacts, with a trend for assuming new record values with each new significant spill.