Abstract
The paper will give an introduction to sand problems and management in the oil & gas industry, and describe the challenges to overcome them. A major part of the presentation will be directed to deepwater and ultra deepwater applications with respect to sand management, subsea design and how the sand monitoring systems should be used with respect to sand production. The contractors are designing the subsea equipment more and more compact than ever and that adds challenges to designing and operation subsea sand monitoring equipment, ClampOn will address this, and show how this can be overcome by applying correct design to the project and operator.
It will be discussed why sand monitoring systems should be installed subsea and not at the surface since surface appears to be more cost-effective (and it is a fact that the operator have open access to the sensor, e.g. for tie back installations). An example from field will be shown to see the distinguished difference between a subsea installation and a topside installation. The example will explain the difference in quality of the measurement and the danger of filling up the production line with sand due to missing information about the nature of the sand production. It will be shown how an offshore operator can get real time information by installing the sand monitoring system subsea.
Part of the presentation will demonstrate how operators, by using a real life example, optimize the oil & gas production by the use of sand monitoring systems and the savings they make, in actual figures after installing sand monitors. Operators own experience with the sand control system will also be discussed – field data will be shown on several of these topics.
The paper will show the latest in development of ultrasonic sand monitoring systems – both for deepwater and ultradeep water installations. Further on it will show the development of a retrofit system that can be installed subsea on an existing flow line without any disturbance of the oil & gas production itself.
Also, the paper will discuss the probable future aspects of sand management and monitoring for subsea installations.
