The purpose of this research was to understand the potential impact of drag reducing agents (DRA) on internal corrosion of liquid hydrocarbon pipelines.
The first task of this project included a comprehensive review of literature and knowledge, both in public domain and from industry experience, on the effect of DRA on water and solid transport in liquid hydrocarbons, and possible interactions with other performance chemicals typically used in the oil and gas industry. This was the basis for defining the final bench test methodology and test matrix to be performed in the second task.
A novel bench-top apparatus was designed based on a vertical Couette cell approach, and a test methodology was successfully implemented to evaluate the potential effect(s) of DRA on water accumulation and localized corrosion at the oil/water interface. A test matrix was conducted with two DRAs (a water based and an oil based) and two corrosion inhibitors (a water soluble and an oil soluble) at a given test condition (3.5% NaCl saturated with 97%CO2/3%O2, pH ~6 at 80 oF).
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