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Flow assurance is a relatively new term in oil and gas industry. It refers to ensuring successful and economical flow of hydrocarbon stream from reservoir to the point of sale. Flow assurance is most critical task during deep water energy production because of the high pressures and low temperature involved. The financial loss from production interruption or asset damage due to flow assurance mishap can be astronomical. What compounds the flow assurance task even further is that these solid deposits can interact with each other and can cause catastrophic blockage formation in pipelines and result in flow assurance failure.

This course will provide an understanding of flow phenomena that can help the participant avoid problems such as hydrate formation, pressure (surge) waves, or high viscosity liquid flow failure. This intensive, five-day intermediate level course addresses several critical problems in achieving pipeline flow assurance. The focus of this course is on potential challenges to pipeline operations including: surge, corrosion, hydrate formation, wax deposition, multiphase fluids, and slugging. The causes for these problems, design solutions, and operational responses will be an integral part of the course.

Technical professionals in the pipeline business including: project managers, pipeline engineers, facilities engineers, design engineers, and engineering contractors

By the end of this course delegates will be able to:

· Identify and applying fluid characteristics and behavior in the design and operations of pipeline systems

· Assess the physical behavior of the key flow assurance and integrity challenges: corrosion, hydrate formation, transient behavior, and wax deposition

· Evaluate mechanical integrity

· Evaluate the effectiveness of pigging operations and leak detection systems

· Define the roles and uses of SCADA systems in flow assurance

• Introduction to oil and gas fluid transport properties
• Fluid property data and phase determination
• Fluid flow analysis – single and multiphase
• Introduction to Onshore and Offshore Pipeline Flow Assurance
• Economical Flow from Reservoir to the point of sale
• Identification of Critical problems and Blockage in pipelines
• Handling of Solid deposits
• Application of Fluid Mechanics in Pipeline Operations Integrity
• Avoiding Surging problem and High Viscosity liquid flow Failure
• Evaluation of Chemical Injection and Pigging
• Potential challenges in pipeline operations
• Introduction to oil and gas fluid transportation
• Platforms, risers, floating production units, pipeline to shore and to storage or refineries
• Reservoir fluid properties: oil, gas, condensate and water
• Fluid data and phase determination
• The causes and operational responses to pipeline flow failures
• Emulsion and multiphase fluid flow phenomena
• Fluid flow analysis: single and multiphase
• Surging and slugging
• Surge analysis
• Slug formation and prediction
• Slug formation and prediction
• Riser slugging and surge analysis
• Slug catcher types and operations
• Deposition of paraffin, wax, asphaltene and naphtenates
• Corrosion: internal and external
• Hydrate formation
• Wax formation and deposition
• Asphaltene prediction, scale precipitation and sand production
• The chemistry of hydrocarbon deposits
• Prevention and remediation of wax formation and deposition
• Scaling: prediction of scale precipitation
• Sand production: deposition and pipeline erosion
• Hydrate formation: blockage and corrosion
• Hydrate prevention and control
• SRB attack: internal pipeline corrosion control
• Chemical injection: emulsion breaker, corrosion inhibitor, scale inhibitor, biocides, paraffin inhibitor, flow improver
• Pigging: pig types and operations
• Leak detection methods and SCADA
• The prediction of flows in production risers
• Fluid mechanics of multiphase flow in pipeline
• Transient multiphase simulation tools
• Start-up and shutdown issues