Pour Point Depressant Treatment via a Field-Deployable Performance Monitoring Technology

Abstract

Abstract Waxy crude oils are commonly encountered by oil producers. Wax precipitation and the subsequent wax deposition and/or pipeline gelation are common flow assurance issues associated with crude oil production and transportation. Pour point depressants (PPD) and wax inhibitors (WI) have been proven successful in preventing gelation and mitigating deposition. However, for many reported cases, due to the lack of effective field-deployable performance monitoring technologies, PPD applications have failed to address undesirable changes in field conditions, i.e. increased pressure drop, change in fluid composition, equipment failure etc., in a timely fashion. Utilization of a field-deployable technology will allow a quick and accurate crude treatment via a suitable PPD application. This paper presents a field-deployable technology for wax risk assessment and PPD treatment monitoring. The technology is based on the characterization of the molecular interactions between paraffin chains and PPD additives using Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) fingerprinting. The oil fingerprinting and data analytics can be utilized to predict the wax appearance temperature, pour point and wax deposition potential of the oil. Two polymeric pour point depressants were studied and their remarkable performance and handleability are reported.