Abstract
This paper takes a modified approach to the analysis of cold finger test data and the subsequent evaluation of any paraffin inhibitor through the combined use of high temperature gas chromatography (HTGC) and cold finger equipment. An attempt has been made to study the carbon chain distribution of the different wax deposits obtained – in field, in untreated cold fingers as well as in treated cold fingers to try and understand the domain of components in the crude oil actually causing the deposition issues and then to qualitatively reach a solution based on the chemistry’s performance in that domain of components. It elucidates the performance of selected paraffin inhibitor products on groupings of carbon chain lengths rather than on the total carbon chain length distribution of the deposit as a whole. The method adopted highlights that the percent inhibition rates obtained on the basis of total deposit wax comparison from treated and untreated samples may be different to the percent protection rates in the carbon range desired. Hence, this study provides a methodology for developing improved chemical based paraffin deposition mitigation strategies.
