Rapid Hydrate Formation Conditions Prediction in Acid Gas Streams

Abstract

Sour gas in hydrocarbon reservoirs contains significant amounts of H2S and smaller amounts of CO2. To minimize operational costs, meet air emission standards and increase oil recovery, operators revert to acid gas (re-)injection into the reservoir rather than treating H2S in Claus units. This process requires the pressurization of the acid gas, which, when combined with low-temperature conditions prevailing in subsurface pipelines, often leads to the formation of hydrates that can potentially block the fluid flow. Therefore, hydrates formation must be checked at each pipeline segment and for each timestep during a flow simulation, for any varying composition, pressure and temperature, leading to millions of calculations that become more intense when transience is considered. Such calculations are time-consuming as they incorporate the van der Walls–Platteeuw and Langmuir adsorption theory, combined with complex EoS models to account for the polarity of the fluid phases (water, inhibitors). The formation pressure is obtained by solving an iterative multiphase equilibrium problem, which takes a considerable amount of CPU time only to provide a binary answer (hydrates/no hydrates). To accelerate such calculations, a set of classifiers is developed to answer whether the prevailing conditions lie to the left (hydrates) or the right-hand (no hydrates) side of the P-T phase envelope. Results are provided in a fast, direct, non-iterative way, for any possible conditions. A set of hydrate formation “yes/no” points, generated offline using conventional approaches, are utilized for the classifier’s training. The model is applicable to any acid gas flow problem and for any prevailing conditions to eliminate the CPU time of multiphase equilibrium calculations.