Simultaneous hydrate and paraffin treatment at a subsea Gulf of Mexico development

A subsea development in the Gulf of Mexico was experiencing flow assurance challenges due to both hydrate and paraffin formation. The basic field architecture comprised three satellite dry-tree wells (Satellites 1, 2 and 4) that were flowed via relatively shallow subsea flowlines to a host processing facility, where production was commingled with that of platform wells. The incumbent chemical treatment comprised injection of 20 gal/day of a thermodynamic hydrate inhibitor at Satellite 1, 275 gal/day of an aliphatic paraffin solvent at Satellite 4 and an additional 20 gal/day of paraffin solvent at the production facility. Even with these incumbent treatments, hydrate plugging occurred in the Satellite 1 subsea flowline, and the Satellite 4 flowline experienced precipitation of mixed paraffin and hydrates.