HYDRAFACT
Hydrafact is a leading provider of gas hydrate, flow assurance and PVT consulting and technical services involving the transportation of oil, gas and multiphase hydrocarbon products from reservoir to refinery. Our experimental services (including an H2S lab) are a core part of the work we do to establish a proper understanding of fluid properties at operating conditions. As a result, our experimental capabilities are the cornerstone of our offering, allowing us to simulate real pipeline conditions and use the results to provide clear operational recommendations for our clients.
Hydrafact has extensive experience in thermodynamic modelling and can perform a comprehensive series of calculations using our in-house software HydraFLASH. The company's modelling experience covers a wide range of flow assurance related challenges from early assessment of potential problems to designing the best remediation strategy. At Hydrafact we can accurately model the phase behaviour for systems containing gas, oil, water and condensate mixtures in the presence of salts and organic inhibitors with or without gas hydrates.
The worst case flow assurance scenario requires care and knowledge of the hazards. Hydrafact provides expert technical advice on the best strategy to remove blockages safely and quickly. Over the years, we have helped numerous clients avoid and deal with hydrate blockages. Sometimes all it takes a quick call to avoid a serious problem. From locating the plug, to safe and speedy removal, we are always on hand to provide expert technical advice on dealing with hydrate blockages, ensuring you are back up and producing in the shortest time possible.
Gas hydrate technical studies we offer include:
Wax deposition in pipelines and risers is an on going challenge for operators, and can have a significant effect on oil production efficiency. Build-up in pipelines can cause increased pressure drops, resulting in reduced throughput and thus reduced revenue. In more extreme cases, pipelines/processing facilities can plug, halting production and leading to potentially huge losses in earnings.
As a result of increasing understanding of the problems of wax deposition, there are now successful preventative solutions, including chemical treatments and hot oiling. As well as this, Hydrafact have developed a number of reliable in-house methods for studies of heavy hydrocarbon solids deposition in crude oils, including novel QCM and cold finger techniques.
Wax technical services we offer include:
Asphaltene deposition can present a major flow assurance challenge. Deposition can occur in various parts of the production system including well tubing, surface flow lines and even near the wellbore. The conditions of asphaltene deposition are controlled by factors such as pressure, temperature, composition and flow regime. Asphaltene deposition and fouling of flowlines/facilities can greatly reduce productivity and increase operational costs through the requirement for frequent chemical treatment and removal of deposits.
Asphaltene technical services we offer include:
Hydrafact has acquired extensive experience relating to phase behaviour and properties of CO2- Rich systems in the presence or absence of water and oil. Our experimental facilities include:
In addition, our comprehensive thermodynamic model HydraFLASH has been tuning and validated using literature and in-house data for predicting phase behaviour and properties of CO2-rich systems.
The precipitation of salt (e.g. NaCl, KCl) is a serious problem and can block the flow path of hydrocarbons. Salt scaling is particularly severe in wells with high saline (>200 g/l) formation brines which may be near saturation with respect to sodium chloride. The phenomena occurs more frequently in gas wells than in oil wells, and can be caused by low pressures, decreasing temperatures and/or the addition of organic hydrate inhibitors.
Salts readily adhere to surfaces, particularly rough surfaces, and are capable of forming very dense plugs, severely restricting flow and thus production efficiency.
Salt deposition technical services we offer include:
Hydrafact has advanced experimental facilities that span a wide range of PT conditions, from very low (-80°C) to very high temperatures (400°C), and from vacuum to ultra-high pressures ( 30,000 psia / 2 kbar).
Hydrafact has combined the laboratory facilities of the Centre for Gas Hydrate Research (CGHR) and Centre for Flow Assurance Research (C-FAR) with our own providing access to some of the most advanced laboratory equipment worldwide.
The majority of our set-ups are custom built in-house based on designs developed through many years of R&D experience and a full scope of our capabilities can be viewed in the following brochure: Hydrafact Facilities