Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - flow

Flow assurance is a relatively new term in oil and gas industry. It refers to ensuring successful and economical flow of hydrocarbons from reservoir to the point of sale and is closely linked to multiphase flow technology. Flow Assurance developed because traditional approaches were inappropriate for deepwater production due to extreme distances, depths, temperatures or economic constraints. The term “Flow Assurance” was first used by Petrobras in the early 1990s (Garantia do Escoamento in Portuguese), meaning literally Guarantee of Flow, or Flow Assurance. Flow assurance is an extremely diverse subject, encompassing many specialized engineering disciplines.

The quality of a cementing job is vital to the safety, efficiency and cost effectiveness of deepwater well. Yet, well casings can be made even safer by the addition of a barrier in the annulus between casings. Offshore service providers have developed a variety of ways to create this extra barrier. Baker Hughes has developed its version of a secondary mechanical pressure barrier above the uppermost hydrocarbon zone, designed to prevent any unintended and uncontrolled flow of reservoir fluids to surface in the event of failure of the cement barrier, and also help boost production rates by eliminating flow that would otherwise be lost to the annulus (if positioned in the B-Annulus*). Their solution is an electronically actuated packer with proven zero-extrusion gap seal technology.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) can increase the volume of recovered oil from a well mainly through the use of two distinct techniques. One is water injection, which is increasingly being used in mature fields and another is CO2 injection which is mostly used in deepwater fields and according to Petrobras will be extensively used at many of the pre-salt fields in Brazil, as these fields usually contain significant amounts of CO2 along with oil and gas. These are secondary production processes. The production process always refers to oil that is recovered naturally from a producing well, that is without the use of pressure or flow stimulants, such as water or CO2.

Multiphase pump technology allows increased development of remote location, deepwater plays and for fields deemed uneconomical due to low flow pressure. With the ability to handle high gas volumes as well as potentially reducing the risk on the environment, multiphase pumps are being increasingly used for subsea and downhole applications. Selection of multiphase boosting options remains a bit subjective and is frequently influenced by the seller’s informationwhich may mask potential limitations of this emerging technology. Information on multiphase pumping tends to focus on a certain pump type for a specific field application, but does not provide more-generalized criteria for the selection of multiphase boosting solutions from among those available in the market.

Pipeline pigging is actually a form of flow assurance for O&G pipelines and flowlines. This is because the use of pipeline pigging helps maintain subsea pipelines clear of unwanted material or debris that may build up in a pipeline and eventually cause the passage of O&G to slow or even stop altogether if the pipeline is plugged with these materials. This unwanted debris, such as wax and paraffin, when obstructing a pipeline's flow, may cause the subsea pipelines to crack, by increasing the pressure in the pipeline. A highly clogged pipeline section may also cause damage to other sections of the same pipeline, due to pressure increase along the line caused by the decrease in flow along the clogged pipeline section.