Hydrate Management in Practice

This paper describes the hydrate management strategies in Statoils gas and oil production systems. Hydrate management is a risk based approach allowing operations within the hydrate domain when the risk for hydrate plugging is concluded to be low. This is in sharp contrast to the hydrate avoidance approach practiced by Statoil in the past. Statoil has over 500 subsea wells and more than 100 subsea flowlines in operation. The hydrate management strategies take advantage of the intrinsic properties of the fluid systems, the hydrodynamics, and the plugging risk related to the amount of water present in the different parts of the production systems. This approach is based on a large body of research performed at Statoil and on extensive field experiences. Statoils current best practices in different production systems are described, and relevant examples from the field operations are provided.