STAGES OF ACCUMULATION OF OIL DROPLETS AND GAS BUBBLES IN THE DOME FOR CASES OF DEEP-SEA SPILLS: PART 1

Abstract

The paper considers the process of installing a special device – a separator dome, which is designed to eliminate deep-water spills, the occurrence of which is associated with the deep-sea development of oil fields or oil transportation through underwater pipelines. Modeling of special devices for eliminating the consequences of deep-sea leaks is a very important task. This is due to the large volumes of oil production in the shelf. Oil spills in various areas of the seas of the World Ocean (Gulf of Mexico, North Sea) have shown that there is still no qualitative method that can quickly and efficiently solve the problem of oil spills. The main methods for eliminating leaks are associated with the collection of oil already on the surface of the reservoir. The work describes the entire sequence of actions aimed at collecting hydrocarbons in the dome, and each of the stages is considered in detail. Separately, the condition is considered how to exclude the ingress of gas hydrates into the device, as this may interfere with its proper operation. In order to eliminate the possible accumulation of hydrate particles inside the dome, the dome is filled with an immiscible liquid with water (ILW). In the first part of this work, the stages of installation of the device and the general philosophy of the process of accumulation of hydrocarbons inside are described in detail, and the basic equations describing the first three stages of the installation are also given. The process of migration of oil droplets inside the dome, the process of accumulation of oil droplets inside the dome, the interaction of oil and ILW solution is described in detail. At the first stage, the process of migration of oil droplets that penetrate into the dome through the open lower base is considered. Droplets falling inside the dome migrate in a layer of alcohol solution, and then, reaching the upper surface of the dome, begin to form a layer of oil. To estimate the temperature of the accumulated oil layer, the interaction with the ILW layer is calculated by calculating the heat flow.