An experimental and simulation study of wax deposition in hydrocarbon pipeline

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Hydrocarbon transportation in the deepwater pipelines is affected by the low temperature causing a problem such as wax deposition and hydrate formation. The flow assurance in the deepwater pipelines is very important due to the precipitation of the solid phase of wax on the pipe wall creating blockages and reduces or stops production. There are several mitigation methods were used in the different oil fields around the world to reduce wax deposition such as inhibitors and thermal insulation. This work describes the underlining wax models implemented in OLGA, depending on the experimental data of this study. OLGA software was used to simulate the wax deposition process to predict the behaviour of the wax deposition. A comparison between the experimental wax thickness and the predicted wax thickness was presented. Since simulations based on the default wax parameters did not achieve a complete match with experiments, it was important to find out to what extent tuning of wax parameters was necessary. Three scenarios were created to match the experimental wax thickness, including studying the effect of changing wax porosity in OLGA, changing the crude oil components and the influence of simulation time on wax deposition. The findings of the numerical simulation, after tuning the analogical properties (assumptions), show agreement with the experimental results.