ABSTRACT

Based on the success of foam in subsurface applications it is of interest to investigate whether foam can also help overcome liquid management problems in surface flowline-riser systems. Therefore, flow experiments were carried out in the flow loop at the Shell Technology Centre Amsterdam. The facility consists of a 100 m long horizontal flowline (with 50.8 mm diameter) followed by a 16.8-m vertical riser (with 44 mm diameter). Air and water are the working fluids, and operation is at atmospheric outlet pressure. Foam is created by adding "Dreft™" (a dishwashing detergent) in various concentrations to the water/air flow. Experiments were taken both without and with foam. Various measurement techniques were used: differential pressure sensors, flow visualization, and Distributed Acoustic Sensors (DAS) (fibre optics). The focus is on (growing) slugs in the horizontal flowline, and severe slugging in the flowline-riser. It can be concluded from the small-scale lab experiments that adding a surfactant mitigates (growing) slugs in (nearly) horizontal flowlines, whereas the severe slugging cycle in a flowline-riser configuration cannot be broken.

Keywords:
foam, configuration, ppm, production control, pressure gradient, effective concentration, concentration, upstream oil & gas, reservoir surveillance, superficial liquid velocity
Subjects:
Well & Reservoir Surveillance and Monitoring, Pipelines, Flowlines and Risers, Risers
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2018. BHR Group 2018 Multiphase 11
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