35 results about "Flow assurance" patented technology

Managing hydrates in a subsea includes a host production facility, a production cluster comprising one or more producers, a water injection cluster comprising one or more water injectors, a water injection line, and a single production line for directing production fluid from the one or more producers to the host production facility. The methods comprise placing a pig in the subsea production system, shutting in production from the producers, and injecting a displacement fluid into the subsea production system in order to displace the hydrate inhibitor and any remaining production fluids in the production flowline and to further move the pig through the production flowline. The method may also include further injecting displacement fluid into the subsea production system in order to displace the hydrate inhibitor and pig through the single production line and to the host production facility.

An immersion probe is described that includes sensing elements that allow for hydrate inhibitor dosage to be more efficiently provided into gas and/or oil wells. The immersion probe allows for detection of first appearance of water in a multiphase flow in a well, measuring the amount of inhibitor in water within the well, determining an accurate water-cut, and measuring other property such as water salinity. Accordingly, with the known water-cut, salinity and the water flow rate inferred from the inhibitor injection flow rate and inhibitor-in-water fraction, a correct dosage of the inhibitor can be injected to the well in order to prevent hydrate formation, while reducing overdosing. Water flow rate may also be inferred from an independently measured liquid flow rate and the immersion-probe measured water cut.

The invention provides a device used for X-ray CT equipment to observe growth characteristics of natural gas hydrate in a blind pipe and belongs to the field of flow assurance in the delivery process of oil and gas. In-situ generation of the natural gas hydrate in the blind pipe of an oil-gas pipeline can be simulated, and growth conditions of the natural gas hydrate can be observed through the X-ray CT equipment. After liquid is injected into a reaction kettle and after leakage detection, gas is injected into the reaction kettle through a constant-pressure pump, and consumption of the gas is recorded to evaluate the growth conditions of the hydrate. During detection, a magnetic stirring system is used for stirring liquid in the reaction kettle, simulating flow of a liquid phase in the pipeline and promoting mutual cooperation of gas-liquid phases to generate hydrate. Every other certain period, X-ray CT photographing is conducted in the reaction kettle, the growth condition of hydrate in the blind pipe is observed, and growth characteristics of the hydrate in the blind pipe are studied. Measuring results are used for on-site guidance of a seabed oil-gas delivery system, and a powerful theoretical support can be provided for deep studying of hydrate risk control technology.

A flow assurance system comprising a plurality of flow assurance devices, each for performing a different flow assurance function. A platform device interfaces with the plurality of flow assurance devices to integrate the different flow assurance functions and enable a single point of entry of data for the flow assurances devices of the system.

A system and method is provided for assuring adequate flow in one or more wells. The system and method utilize a sensor system and a modeling technique that provides simple outputs readily usable by a non-specialist wellbore operator.

A combination of sensors are strategically placed along a pipeline to measure critical properties such as temperature and pressure of the flow product. The sensors are a combination of fiber optic sensing devices that are specifically designed to measure a range of properties within particular bandwidth, with a method to reduce light attenuation over the long pipeline distances. The pipeline is typically subsea and can range widely in diameter. In many cases the pipeline has a coating that acts as a barrier to the corrosive sea water and additional thermal barriers.

A flow assurance system and method includes procedures to query current valve states and determine the likely effect of new valve states on product flow when using an automated pig launcher. The system and method allows for modulating the mainline bypass valve, kicker valve, and isolation valve between fully opened and fully closed states; prevents flow blocking of the pipeline during this modulation; enables new and different, as well as a broader range of, pig launching options for an automatic pig launcher; and integrates with existing automatic pig launchers.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a unique new approach to generating operating condition information used for assessing flow assurance and structural integrity. More specifically, apparatuses, systems and sensor housing assemblies configured in accordance with embodiments of the present invention utilize fiber optic sensors for enabling monitoring of operating condition information within one or more elongated tubular members. To this end, such fiber optic sensors are strategically placed at a plurality of locations along a length of each elongated tubular member thereby allowing critical operating conditions such as strain, temperature and pressure of the elongated tubular member and/or a fluid therein to be monitored.

The invention discloses a system and method for diagnosing the engine air inflow measuring accuracy of an HFM. The problem that currently, matched equipment or a corresponding method for diagnosing the air measuring accuracy of the HFM on a large commercial engine is not available is solved. The system and method can diagnose whether the air inflow measured by the HFM is accurate or not, and thus correct air flow assurance is provided for subsequent intra-cylinder fuel injection and for subsequent diesel engine post-treatment urea injection. According to the technical scheme, the system comprises an air flow meter and an air inlet pressure temperature sensor which are used for measuring the air mass flows entering the engine correspondingly and then sending the air mass flow to a controller, the air mass flows which are detected when an EGR valve is totally closed and entering the engine serve as a first measured value and a second measured value to be stored in the controller, and the controller receives the first measured value and the second measured value and obtains the deviation between the first measured value and the second measured value so as to judge whether the air mass flows, measured by the air flow meter HFM, entering the engine drift or not.

A system and method for predictive flow assurance assessment by measuring at least one actual parameter related to a multiphase fluid mixture flowing in a main flow line, taking a sample from the multiphase fluid mixture flowing in the main flow line, modifying at least one control parameter of the sample until a transition appears, wherein said transition would cause a flow issue when occurring in the main flow line, detecting the transition of the sample and determining a corresponding transition value associated with the at least one control parameter, calculating a difference between the at least one actual parameter and the at least one transition value, said difference being representative of a margin relatively to a similar transition appearance in the main flow line causing a flow issue in the main flow line, and implementing a flow issue preventing step when the difference exceeds a given threshold.

A pipe assembly comprising an outer pipe in surrounding relation about an inner pipe, wherein the inner pipe is suspended in free inner ends of legs extended in an annular space that is formed between the outer and inner pipes, the legs reaching radially towards the inner pipe from an inner periphery of the outer pipe. At least one of the legs carries in its inner end a support foot that is formed with a recess facing towards the inner pipe. The recess forms a tunnel that is defined through an outer periphery of the inner pipe and opposite tunnel walls that reach from the leg to the inner pipe.

A system may automatically control a pipeline heating system to maintain a desired temperature and/or to provide flow assurance of process fluid along a pipeline. The system may identify the occurrence and location of the solidification of a given process fluid or the melting of the given process fluid by monitoring temperatures along the pipeline and identifying from the monitored temperatures the occurrence and location of a latent heat signature associated with the solidification or melting of the given process fluid. The system may determine a distribution of solidified process fluid along the pipeline. The system may determine the percentage of a given section of pipeline that is filled with solid and/or liquid process fluid on a meter-by-meter basis. The system may perform automated re-melt operations to resolve plugs of solidified process fluid that may occur in the pipeline.

The present invention includes a method for thermodynamic modeling of asphaltene precipitation comprising: calculating the Gibbs free energy for the transition between asphaltene molecules in solution into an imaginary crystalline asphaltene nanoaggregates or asphaltene nanocrystals; calculating the Gibbs free energy for the transition between asphaltene nanoaggregates or nanocrystals redissolving into colloidal asphaltene nanoaggregates using the computer: and predicting asphaltene solubility in a solvent, wherein the predicted asphaltene solubility is used to add a solvent to a liquid, semi-solid, or solid comprising aspahaltenes to prevent, e.g., fouling of a wellbore, pipeline, downstream unit operations, to provide flow assurance for crude oil pipeline network, or for petroleum crude blending.

The present invention is related to artificial lifting systems and production flow assurance from subsea oil wells. In this sense, the present invention provides an integrated subsea oil heating and pumping system hydraulically actuated by heated injection water, the system comprising at least one recoverable pumping module (3) connected to a subsea base (6) which, in turn, receives the produced fluids from at least one subsea producing well (1). The subsea base (6) is connected to a production unit (10) through a riser (8) through which the produced oil flows and to an injection line (7) that feeds the pumping module (3) with water which, after activating the turbine (15) and pump (16) set, is injected through at least one injection well. The present invention further provides a hydraulically actuated subsea pumping method associated with the system described above.

A flow angle probe is provided having (a) a probe flap for contacting a moving fluid within a fluid conduit; (b) a probe body mechanically coupled to the probe flap; (c) a force sensor disposed within the probe body and operationally coupled to the probe flap; and optionally (d) a probe shaft coupled to the probe body. A deflection of the probe flap caused by contact with the moving fluid produces a corresponding force sensor signal output which is minimized by rotation of the probe flap. The angle between this point of minimum deflection and a reference position is taken to be the flow angle of the moving fluid in the vicinity of the probe flap. The novel flow angle probes disclosed herein may be used in a wide variety of turbomachines and fluid processing systems, and applications, including turbomachine design and operational control, and in flow assurance.

The invention discloses a pretreatment system and method for an offshore fixed liquefied natural gas platform. The pretreatment system comprises an onshore raw gas receiving system, an onshore sea gasreceiving system, an onshore slug flow capture system, an onshore marketable gas receiving system, a land-sea pipeline system and an offshore receiving system. The pretreatment system and method forthe offshore fixed liquefied natural gas platform integrates the technical and economic advantages of the offshore fixed liquefied natural gas platform, gives further consideration to problems of land-sea multi-gas source, multi-gas quality, flow assurance, pipeline landing, large slug flow capture and the like, proposes a mode of performing centralized pretreatment onshore on an onshore gas source, guiding the offshore gas source onshore for pretreatment after being collected on the platform in a centralized manner, and feeding back offshore for deep treatment according to a special medium line after the gas source is subjected to the centralized pretreatment onshore, expands different gas source acceptability of the offshore fixed liquefied natural gas platform to the greatest extent, gives full consideration to the problems of slug flow capture frequency of a slug flow capture device, offshore construction cost and the like, and greatly reduces the landing pipeline density from theland to the platform.