Case Study: Flow Assurance

Problem

A major Operator had a wax deposition issue in a North Sea transmission pipeline. The initial deposition spike was around the 5000m mark with further but declining thicknesses out to around 25,000m. With a spike thickness of around 39mm in an 8” ID line (approx. 200mm), there were significant difficulties with pigging operations. Previous attempted interventions using either diesel or condensate had failed to deliver any significant improvement.

Solution

Our Dewax RX product has exceptional dissolving, thinning and dispersing properties across a very wide range of wax types and compositions and was therefore the product of choice. Testing versus actual samples of wax taken from the front of a scraper pig rapidly confirmed that Dewax RX was indeed ideally effective versus this particular wax.

As the Operator was unfamiliar with the use of Dewax RX in subsea pipeline conditions, it wished to run a trial deployment. When this was carried out the ping-test results indicated such clear evidence of wax deposit softening and dispersion that a full-scale intervention was then commissioned.

The operator deployed Dewax RX in several pumped pills between production runs over a period of five weeks.

Results and Benefits

The final results allowed an immediate return to regular pigging operations and thus continue to maintain the export flow at an optimum rate.