Journal of the Korean Society of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineers ISSN:2288-0291(Print) 2288-2790(Online) 한국자원공학회지

Hydrates, which contain a large amount of methane, have been considered as a future energy resource. However, the formation of hydrates in the oil and gas industries has been known as a serious problem for a long time. The formation of hydrate in pipeline is common in seasonally cold or sub-sea environments with low temperatures and high pressures. Especially, hydrate plug formation becomes a real menace to flow assurance in inadequately protected transmission lines. This study was carried out for the purpose of understanding mechanism of hydrate plugging and examining formation conditions of hydrate in high pressure gas pipeline. The experiments have been performed in flow loop apparatus consisting of a 1.575 cm inside diameter and 400 cm long tube with 20 cm long transparent view pipe. Most experiments have been conducted at 4.90 MPa, 5.90 MPa and 6.87 MPa with various flowing velocities of 0.28 through 0.78 m/s. In this study, we measured hydrate equilibrium conditions under the various flowing conditions with the methane. The results were presented both the plugging tendency and the effect of flowing velocity. Through this study, we could obtain the predicting techniques for hydrate plugging phenomena in sub-sea pipeline system as well as PNG (pipelined natural gas) transmission system.