Computer Aided Flow Assurance in Pipeline in Presence of Hydrate

Gas Hydrate is considered as the main flow assurance concern in energy industry, especially in East Asia such as Malaysia, where the oil reservoirs include significant amount of methane gas. This issue has encouraged scientists to conduct serious studies for prediction of gas hydrate formation in order to efficiently prevent blockage of transportation line by solid hydrate. In fact, the flowability in any zone of pipeline will be at risk due to hydrate formation, especially the inactive parts of the flow. Inhibition methods for hydrate formation have been under constant investigations since early 1930’s when hydrate was found to be the main responsible component for gas transmission line blockage. However, usually hydrate prevention practice requires the large amount of chemical inhibitors, which in turn makes these methods significantly expensive. Therefore, an accurate prediction of flow behavior is required in order to estimate the possibility of hydrate formation in any part of flow, in order to optimize the amount of inhibitors or accurately design other preventive methods. In this study the main focus is on the available computer tools for hydrate formation predictions. Some software packages such as AspenHysys v 8.3, CSMHYD and Hydrate Plus have been analyzed and their outcome is compared to some experimental data. In addition, some correlations have been investigated in order to choose the most suitable tool for Hydrate formation prediction in pipeline. The result of this study can help Flow Assurance engineers to precisely predict where and when hydrate forms in order to prevent the environmental and safety crisis associated with its formation in pipeline.