王明波等-中国石油大学（华东）-A new method for the prevention of natural gas hydrate during transportation and pro

Session 4 - Oral 5

A new method for the prevention of natural gas hydrate during transportation and production

Wang Ming-bo, Wang Wei, Wang Rui-lin

School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China) Qingdao 266580

Abstract: The high-pressure and low-temperature environment prevailing in the process of offshore oil and gas development is very prone to the formation of hydrate in the wellbore to block the tubing, which leads to production reduction and shutdown and causes a series of production accidents. Current mainstream hydrate prevention and treatment methods have the disadvantages of high cost, high toxicity and high pollution, and new and more effective hydrate prevention and treatment methods are urgently needed in the deep-water offshore well development. In this paper, the thermal effect of cavitation is introduced into the hydrate prevention and treatment process of deep-water offshore production wells, and the upper section of the completion tubing structure is designed to be applicable to the actual field. With the help of indoor experimental system, we have analyzed the influences of several working parameters such as the injection pressure, injection frequency, initial temperature of the fluid and the pressure inside the cavitator on the development of cavitation thermal effect. Preliminary conclusion drawn from both numerical simulation and experimental observations provides a new and possible way of natural gas hydrate prevention in near future.

Keywords: deep-water, natural gas hydrate, cavitation, thermal effect, experimental study