FLOW ASSURANCE: A SURFACE ROUGHNESS APPROACH

A method is presented to provide the engineer with a new means for applying the internal surface pipe roughness to optimize pipe hydrodynamics and flow. Such an approach improves flow assurance, and increases savings over those associated with the use of conventional piping.

Our results are based on impact of surface roughness reduction as a result of utilizing internally coated and newly developed alloys, OCTG. Our approach to estimate the average surface roughness for modern pipes is based on using our new relative roughness tables and graph when used in the models showed that there was a decrease in the pressure drop with an accompanying increase in the fluid throughput. The presenting case histories using the newly developed surface roughness values for internally coated and newly developed alloyed piping are discussed.

Computer models were used to consider the newly developed surface roughness graph and its application to simulate production results for four candidate wells. Case histories are presented for an oil well located in northern Wyoming and a gas well located offshore Louisiana, respectively. The PIPEPHASEB. 7.2 computer model (Simsci,1999) was used to investigate the impact of changing the internal surface roughness of the tubing in a Gulf of Mexico oil well.