Rigorous Carbonate and Sulfide Scale Predictions: What Really Matters?

Ness, Giulia; Sorbie, Kenneth Stuart

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.9b02646

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Mineral Scale Threats in Oil/Gas Industry The formation of scale particles is a result of exceeding local saturation of the brine solution at the operational conditions of concern (Jordan et al, 2008a;Kan and Tomson, 2012;Zhang P. et al, 2015;Dai et al, 2019;Kan et al, 2019;Ness and Sorbie, 2019;Zhang et al, 2019b). The solution supersaturation will initiate scale crystal formation and subsequently promote the crystal growth of scale particles.…”

Section: Oilfield Flow Assurance and Mineral Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Synthesis and Evaluation of Inhibitor Nanomaterials for Oilfield Mineral Scale Control

Zhang

2020

Front. Chem.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Oilfield flow assurance is the subject to study the impact on the flow of production fluids due to physicochemical changes in the production system. Mineral scale deposition is among the top 3 water-related flow assurance challenges in petroleum industry, particularly for offshore and shale operations. Scale deposition can lead to serious operational risks and significant financial loss. The most commonly adopted strategy in oilfield scale control is the deployment of chemical inhibitors. Although conventional chemical inhibitors are effective in inhibiting scale threat, they have the drawbacks of short transport distance and limited squeeze lifetime due to their intrinsic chemical properties. In the past decade, as an alternative to conventional chemical inhibition, research efforts have been made to prepare functional nanomaterials with different chemical compositions to overcome the drawbacks of conventional chemical inhibitors. These synthesized nanomaterials can serve as delivery vehicles to deploy inhibitors into the target location in the production system. These nanomaterials are reported to have multiple advantages over the conventional inhibitors in terms of transportability, controlled release, and functionality, evidenced by a series of experimental studies. This review presents an overview of scale inhibitor nanomaterial development and the current methods to synthesize and to evaluate these nanomaterials in a systematic and comprehensive manner. This review focuses on the chemistry principles and methodologies underlying inhibitor nanomaterial synthesis and also the chemical instrument and strategies in evaluating the physiochemical properties of these materials in terms of inhibition effectiveness, transportability, and inhibitor return. The scale inhibitor nanomaterials (SINMs) presented in this review exemplify the continuous development in our capabilities in adopting novel nanotechnology in combating actual engineering challenges in petroleum industry.

show abstract

Section: Oilfield Flow Assurance and Mineral Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Synthesis and Evaluation of Inhibitor Nanomaterials for Oilfield Mineral Scale Control

Zhang

2020

Front. Chem.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A Rigorous Procedure to Predict Coupled Carbonate and Sulfide Scales in Different Field Scenarios

Ness

Sorbie²

2020

Day 3 Fri, June 26, 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The prediction of pH-dependent scales such as carbonates and sulfides presents unique challenges because their formation is strongly related to the three phase partitioning of the acid gases (CO2 and H2S). A rigorous procedure is required to ensure proper modelling of the hydrocarbon phases, in order to derive the correct data input for the software from available field data. Using this input, reliable scale prediction calculations may then be run using either integrated or separate PVT and scale prediction software. Although some carbonate scale prediction methods have been published in the past, these methods are field and software specific, and they do not provide a general procedure for carbonate and sulfide scale predictions in oil and gas wells. Operators also have in-house proprietary procedures, but these are not publicly available and hence cannot be used or critically reviewed by the wider upstream chemistry community. This work presents an improved version of the original Heriot-Watt scale prediction workflow previously published in 2017 (Verri et al., 2017). The authors show how this previous procedure is intrinsically general, but requires modifications depending on specific field variables such as oil type, topside vs reservoir data availability or the use of integrated or separate PVT and scale prediction software. The workflow is built on three general calculation blocks which apply to all field scenarios, as follows: 1. defining a total PVT feed; 2. modelling the water chemistry leaving the reservoir; 3. running scale prediction calculations throughout the system. After describing the general carbonate and sulfide scale prediction procedure in details, this paper also looks into the specific calculation steps required in different scenarios for variable oil type, sample availability (topside vs downhole), software choice (integrated vs separate PVT and aqueous phase models), EOR, reservoir souring, artificial lift, and HP/HT/HS. This is a truly general approach to carbonate and sulfide scale predictions which the authors hope will provide a widely available, useful tool to anyone performing field prediction studies for pH-dependent scales. In addition, a worked example is presented in Appendix 1 where the "correct" answer is known, and the workflow is demonstrated to be rigorous in that it recovers this correct answer. This data can be used to test any other procedures for rigorously predicting carbonate and sulfide scales from field data.

show abstract

Calcium Carbonate Scale Management Over Life of Field - A Case Study

Hatscher¹,

Kvinge²,

Thurmaier³

2022

Day 1 Wed, May 25, 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper focuses on a field case of an offshore oil well producing from the Norwegian Brage Brent reservoir. The gas lifted well has a tendency for calcium carbonate scaling in the upper completion. Shortly after start of production, the well experienced a sudden significant increase in scale deposition. This required additional operational efforts for remediation using acid. The investigation into the reasons for the sudden increase in scaling, as well as remediation options employed for its mitigation, are presented within the paper. Both subsurface scale simulation evaluations and operational procedures undertaken to remediate the wellbore scaling are detailed.

show abstract

Rigorous Carbonate and Sulfide Scale Predictions: What Really Matters?

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Review of Synthesis and Evaluation of Inhibitor Nanomaterials for Oilfield Mineral Scale Control

Review of Synthesis and Evaluation of Inhibitor Nanomaterials for Oilfield Mineral Scale Control

A Rigorous Procedure to Predict Coupled Carbonate and Sulfide Scales in Different Field Scenarios

Calcium Carbonate Scale Management Over Life of Field - A Case Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About