In oil and gas production, solid particles can be entrained in the produced fluid. While sand is widely considered as the most common source of solid particles, calcium carbonate particles can also be entrained in the flow, especially in carbonate formations. These entrained solid particlescan erode steel pipe surfaces and protective corrosion products, such as iron carbonate (FeCO3) scale that forms on the steel surface as a result ofthe CO2 corrosion process. The removal of protective layers can lead to high corrosion rates. Extensive research has previously been conducted to study the effect of sand erosion on removing protective iron carbonate scales. However, little is known about the erosion resistance of iron carbonate scale for calcium carbonate particles. The goal of the research presented in this paper is to study the erosion resistance of iron carbonate scale when eroded by calcium carbonate particles, and compare this erosion behavior with scale eroded by sand. Additionally, this research reports data and modeling that describe under what conditions removal of iron carbonate scale and the resulting erosion-corrosion are anticipated by solid particles such as sand or calcium carbonate. Results, for the conditions considered in this study, show that CaCO3 particles can cause considerable damage to iron carbonate scale leading to severe corrosion. For these conditions, sand was found to be more erosive than CaCO3 particles. Results from the erosion model developed in this study showed good agreement with current and previous experimental data.

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