Chapter 8: Flow Assurance in Oil and Natural Gas Production

Flow assurance has been a maturing concept in the oil and gas industry since the 1980s. This includes development of oil and gas fields in ever-deeper water offshore, at longer distances from existing infrastructure, in harsh onshore environments, and with more-challenging fluids such as those from unconventional resources of heavy oil and shale gas. It also includes unconventional developments, with horizontal well lateral lengths of 1-2 miles. The importance of flow assurance comes from its impact on all components in the production system, from reservoir to separator, and from the financial, human, production, and asset losses involved when flow assurance fails. Citing a 1999 Welling and Associates survey, an article on “Coping with Flow Assurance” appeared in Offshore (2005) where 110 energy companies listed flow assurance as the major technical problem in offshore energy developments. Flow assurance is critical in offshore and Arctic energy production projects because of low-temperature and high-pressure environments. In recent years, the technical perspective of flow assurance has changed because of industry focus on risk management instead of prevention.