An experimental study on the effects of internal tubular coatings on mitigating wax deposition in offshore oil production

As the demand for petroleum resources increases, and oilfields on lands and in shallow-sea become exhausted, the areas for oil production are expanding to the deep sea and therefore technologies for flow assurance are coming into the highlight. In low temperature environment such as the deep sea, wax is accumulated and prevents stable oil production. Therefore, the development of flow assurance technologies is required. Wax is precipitated in crystalline form when the oil temperature decreases below the wax appearance temperature; it then accumulates on the inner walls of pipelines causing blockages. In particular, in subsea pipelines, which have a large surface contact area with the surrounding seawater, wax deposition problems are frequent. The internal tubular coating can effectively reduce wax deposition without pausing oil production when the coating is appropriately designed. This study carried out wax deposition tests on a number of internal tubular coatings under single flow conditions. The results were analyzed for the effects that the physical properties of the coatings had on wax deposition.