ANÁLISE DE GARANTIA DE ESCOAMENTO EM SISTEMAS SUBMARINOS

Resumo

The discovery of offshore fields at great distances from the coast and high water depths made
oil and gas production a challenge to the industry. Some of these challenges are due to the possibility of
solids depositions along the subsea pipes, the high cost of exploration and difficult accessibility.
Therefore, flow assurance studies become important to find mitigation strategies and early identification
of possible complications on the production subsea system. However, this analysis demands knowledge
of the pressure and temperature variation along the pipelines (thermo hydraulic profile of the lines). In
order to predict the possible occurrence of flow assurance problems, more specifically the formation of
hydrates and wax, this paper suggests defining and evaluating the thermo hydraulic profile from the
wellhead to the primary processing plant on the surface and associate it to the possible appearance of
flow problems. Taking as input the physical properties of the fluids and the system’s geometry and
applying heat transfer equations in subsea pipelines. Afterwards, integrating the pressure and
temperature gradient equations in short increments of the pipe to calculate the thermo hydraulic profile.
Finally, pipeline insulation designs will be studied in order to prevent the flow assurance problems,
evaluating from the available methods (pipe-in-pipe system, buried pipelines and insulation layers)
which is the most suitable for the studied scenario.