Prediction of organic and inorganic gas hydrates equilibrium conditions in the presence and absence of thermodynamic inhibitors

Abstract

The formation of gas hydrates in surface production equipment is common and poses a significant loss to the oil and gas industry sectors. It arises primarily in the pipeline located beneath sea level, and this causes equipment blockages, increasing the operational cost. Most drilling processes incorporate thermodynamic inhibitors such as methanol, ethylene glycol, and triethylene glycol to address these issues. One method to study this relationship is by developing an empirical correlation to predict the hydrate equilibrium condition. In the current work, new empirical correlations for organic and inorganic gas hydrates in pure water and thermodynamic inhibitors are developed. It was observed that the overall mean deviation between the experimental data and the predicted correlations for organic and inorganic gas hydrates in pure water was 5.61% and 3.27%, respectively. Similarly, the overall mean deviation for CO2 in MeOH, EG, and TEG was 5.77%, 8.90%, and 2.09%, respectively. In the case of CH4 and C2H6 in TEG, the overall mean deviation was 2.03% and 2.16%, respectively. The developed correlations are in good agreement with the experimental data in the literature. The present work may be helpful in predicting the various gas hydrate equilibrium conditions, especially in natural gas production.