29 November 2023| By: Abdullah Hussein
Flow assurance (FA) is an emerging discipline in oil and gas operations that employs science and engineering analysis processes to ensure effective, safe, and economic transportation of hydrocarbons from the reservoir to the final terminals.
The term FA was first used by Petrobras in the early 1990s as Garantia do Escoamento, which is Portuguese for “Guarantee of Flow” or Flow Assurance.Since then, the FA strategy has developed from the fundamental "avoidance" of problems arising from production operations to a broad and all-encompassing approach that now governs all aspect of oil field operations, from the early phases of field development to the end and abandonment.(figure 1)
Fig.1 : The development of flow assurance concept
In general, fluids chemistry and fluids physics are the two primary foundations of FA. Consequently, the majority of FA employed in the literature focuses on resolving problems related to production chemistry and fluids hydrodynamics. These are shown in figure 2.
Fig.2: Flow assurance issues
The foundation of FA strategy is usually based on risk assessment and applying proper mitigation, besides continuous monitoring at all stages of field development. These actions vary based on the field development stage (fig.3).
The risk assessment is achieved through :
- Fluids sampling and analysis
- Prediction and modeling
- Reviewing field history and data of similar case.
After assessing the risk, mitigation methods are designed and applied, which can be one of the following:
- Chemical methods
- Non-chemical methods
- Operational methods
The selection of the mitigation method is based on the severity of the problem, efficiency of the mitigation method, the stage of field development, and the economics of the mitigation method.
Monitoring of the system is a crucial step during the initial investigation and also after treatments. This is usually achieved by
- Routine monitoring of system parameters; P, T, rates, etc.
- Chemical analysis methods,
- Advanced sensors.
Fig.3: Flow assurance management strategy