(53a) Process Safety Problems Caused By Hydrate Formation in Deepwater Production Operations

Process Safety Problems Caused by Hydrate Formation in Deepwater Production Operations

 

Susana Leon, Yogesh Koirala, Sam Mannan

Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center

Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas 77843-3122, USA

+1(979)845-3489, Susana_leon@tamu.edu

 

Abstract: Hydrate formation has been seen as one of the most challenging problems in deepwater production operations because of the low temperatures and high pressures found in deepwater environments. Hydrate formation and its agglomeration in subsea production equipment can cause severe operational issues, leading to substantial asset damage and, most importantly, can cause significant process safety and environmental issues. Examples of the problems caused by hydrates include blockage in wells, risers, flowlines, and manifolds. These blockages can increase the pressure in the system causing equipment damage and potentially resulting in the loss of hydrocarbon containment into the environment.

Although hydrate formation research has been conducted for many years, it has been focused in the development of conceptual models to understand these phenomena and to determine methods to prevent and control the risk. However, recently, the new research approach is to develop a risk assessment in order to have an accurate prediction of hydrate formation in different oil and gas processes that operate under a wide range of conditions. Thus, it is extremely necessary to have a range of probabilities of hydrate formation rather than a fixed and single point, which will allow for the implementation of better strategies to manage the risk associated whit this phenomena. Therefore, this research is focused in the revision, and evaluation of deterministic and probabilistic methods looking for opportunities to optimize the prediction of hydrate formation in subsea production areas; for example, application of the Bayesian probability theory. After having a better estimate of the probability, this research intends to explore the risk assessment methodologies and apply them to subsea processes as part of a new strategy plan to prevent and mitigate the risk.

With the purpose of developing a risk assessment approach to quantify the risk related to the hydrate formation, it is necessary to identify the best hydrate formation model to represent the phenomena behavior followed by the utilization of the Bayesian probability theory to optimize the prediction of hydrate formation. The last step in the process is to identify possible consequences of hydrate formation issues at subsea area and implement an accurate methodology to quantify the risk using hydrate formation models.

Existing literature review shows that the oil and gas industry is taking a different approach to hydrate formation issues, including risk quantification and risk assessment approach.

A risk quantification approach is relatively a new research topic. Therefore, research institutions together with industry started to go deep into how to successfully manage the hydrate formation risk and have found that it requires an accurate forecast of the hydrate growth rate. Consequently, this research will lead to a better understanding of the risk quantification.

Keywords: Safety, hydrate, Bayesian networks, risk assessment