Flow Assurance Engineering - The Role in Projects and the New Challenges of Today

Flow assurance has been becoming an engineering discipline in the offshore industry since it gained its name over one and a half decades ago. The term Flow Assurance originated from the Portuguese term Garantia do Escoamento used by Petrobras. It deals with the prevention of solid depositions in the subsea production systems, including hydrates, wax/paraffins, asphaltenes, naphthenates, etc. Conventional flow assurance technology has matured along with the development of fundamentals associated with the formation, precipitation, and flocculation of the above-mentioned solids.

The role played by flow assurance engineers in a project not only includes providing predictions, but also prevention strategies, and remediation methods in the case that the occurrence of solids deposition blocks a pipeline and jeopardizes production. Flow assurance engineers are also responsible for providing the prediction and interpretation of the fluid characteristics, the flow hydraulics and thermal behaviors, the performance of the production system, and the guidance of operation strategies. Flow assurance engineers interface with multiple disciplines involved with the project, including subsurface, pipeline and risers, subsea hardware, topsides process facilities, chemical vendors, the fluid laboratory, etc.

Successful deployment of the subsea processing technologies in deepwater development and challenging hydrocarbons reservoirs, such as Parque des Conchas (BC-10) in Brazil offshore, and Perdido in Gulf of Mexico, has been a game changer for flow assurance engineering. Subsea processing/separation and subsea multiphase boosting do not solve the flow assurance problems completely; instead, they shift the flow assurance risks to different areas. The new challenges raised by subsea processing have shifted the scope of flow assurance engineering to a new level.

The elements of this presentation are:

• Overview of the new challenges that flow assurance engineering faces today
• From operator’s perspective –
  • The integrated role of flow assurance engineer in E&P companies.
  • The responsibilities of flow assurance engineers in various phases of the projects – preliminary, concept selection, front-end engineering, execution phases, to field start up and first oil.
• The expectations of clients (E&P) for flow assurance engineering and how E&C, service providers, and product deliverers can better serve the industry needs.