Estimated about ∼3 million bbls/day, the Brazil oil field plays a significant part in the South American unconventional thriving, especially in current global oil supply constrains due to Ukraine crise. The oil field located in subsea Latin America, produces a large amount of heavy oil in the range of 16 to 24° API. The water composition is characterized with high chloride and high total dissolved solids (TDS), posing integrity and flow-assurance challenges to the operating asset. To mitigate the corrosion and scale reparations in deep-water environment through limited injection points, a combined corrosion and scale inhibitor was demanded.
The acquiesced CI/SI combined product was synergistically blended with corrosion inhibitor actives and scale inhibitor for corrosion control and scale prevention. Followed Clariant's deep-water qualification process and client's chemical qualification protocols, the CI/SI combined product, MTDF-9339 was designed and focused on the performance of the CI/SI product's partitioning efficiency in heavy crudes for both CI and SI inhibitor molecules. Lab results showed MTDF-9339 passed all mandatory tests and will be conducted for field trials in early 2023. The performance tests include RCE, HPRCA, LPR-RCA, Film Persistency, Dynamic scale loop, scale inhibition, chemical partition tests. The secondary performance tests include thermal stability, brine & oil compatibility, foaming tendency, emulsion tendency, material compatibility tests and so forth. This paper discusses the laboratory testing and deep-water qualification in evaluating MTDF-9339.
This production asset located in the deep-water offshore Brazil, producing heavy oil in the range of 16 to 24 °API. Mudline caisson separators with electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are used to process fluids from multiple wells and boost them to the receiving floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel(1). There are significant flow-assurance and corrosion challenges in operating the asset. One of the challenges is the production fields have limited subsea umbilical, necessitate the use of multifunctional products to maintain the field's integrity and mitigate any flow assurance and scale issues. Due to this reason, a combined product of corrosion inhibitor (CI) and mineral scale inhibitor (SI) is required. However, it is well known that development of these types of combo products can be sometimes complicated because that the potential incompatibility of the cationic film forming corrosion inhibitors such as fatty amines and anionic scale inhibitors such as phosphonates or polymers. Also, SI/CI interactions might lead to a reduction in the performance efficiency of both chemicals(2).
