UEFA Workshop

“Asphaltene Issues in Deepwater Production”  Part II: Service Company Support

Title:  Advances in Flow Assurance Fluid Characterization

April 2015, Houston, TX

Presenter: Elham Mahmoodaghdam is Schlumberger's Reservoir Fluids project engineer. 

Precipitation and subsequent deposition of organic solids such as asphaltenes is one of the major challenges in wellbore, production lines, transportation and downstream processing. These challenges can significantly influence the economy of oil producers by increasing operational and remediation costs as well as decreasing and halting production. The large capital and operating costs associated with prevention and remediation of deposits has created the need for improved techniques to assess the potential of asphaltene precipitation and deposition, in order to produce oil more economically while still providing operations with minimal risks.

Advances in the area of flow assurance fluid characterization will be presented including the application of most recent measurement technology for wax and asphaltene deposition under realistic field conditions. Latest results of asphaltene deposition measurements using flow-through Realview deposition cell and asphaltene inhibitor application will be discussed. 

Finally, the group discussion will be encouraged to identify the gaps in the area of fluid sampling and flow assurance fluid characterization.

Elham Mahmoodaghdam received M.sc degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary in Canada and worked as a Research Engineer in Gas Hydrate research Group in University of Calgary and the Petroleum Thermodynamic research group in University of Alberta. She has 14 years of experience in the oil industry focusing on flow assurance. Elham is currently working as Senior Project Engineer at Schlumberger Testing segment, managing flow assurance fluid analysis and also providing technical support to Schlumberger’s flow assurance characterization globally. Elham was Schlumberger’s Fluid’s Community leader in 2014.

Her expertise includes fluid characterization and assessing the risk associated with flow assurance. She worked on a wide spectrum of reservoirs, ranging from heavy and volatile oil to gas-condensate reservoirs.