Calculation of Time-to-Freeze for Liquids in Pipes

Author(s):  
Bjarte O. Kvamme ◽  
Jino Peechanatt ◽  
Ove T. Gudmestad

In recent years, there has been unprecedented interest shown in the Arctic region by the industry, as it has become increasingly accessible for oil and gas exploration, shipping, and tourism. The decrease in ice extent in the Arctic has renewed the interest in the Northern Sea route, necessitating further research to evaluate the adequacy of the equipment and appliances used on vessels traversing in polar waters. In the oil and gas industry, exploration and production vessels and platforms are highly dependent on the piping facilities for rendering their intended function, and therefore, flow assurance is extremely crucial. If the winterization of pipes is not done properly, this could lead to massive cost overruns due to unplanned production shutdowns or even worse, accidents. A temperature drop between the different areas of the production facilities will change the thermodynamic properties of the fluids, and could cause the processing of the crude oil to become inefficient. The introduction of the Polar Code by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) attempts to mitigate some of the risks endangering the vessels in polar waters. The Polar Code is scheduled to take effect on 01.01.2017, and applies to all vessels traversing in polar waters. The Polar Code requires that all machinery installations and associated equipment required for the safe operation of ships shall be protected against the effect of freezing and increased viscosity of liquids, and that working liquids shall be maintained in a viscosity range that ensures the operation of the machinery. To account for this, the heat loss of pipes carrying liquid (water for fire extinguishing and hydraulic fluid amongst others) needs to be estimated and mitigating measures must be taken. In this study, methodology from the refrigeration industry is applied to calculate the estimated time to freeze for liquids in pipes. The methodology is adapted for use in the maritime industry, and results are presented in this study. The methodology used was found to be quite flexible, allowing for the calculation of complex scenarios and shapes, including the effect of varying degrees of insulation on pipes, and can easily be applied for approximating the best suitable method of insulating pipes to ensure flow assurance and maintain fluid properties at desired levels. Tables estimating the time-to-freeze for insulated pipes of different diameters and insulation thicknesses exposed to cross-winds of varying speeds are provided. The methodology is found to have great potential, and should be investigated further with experiments. The objective of the paper is thus to introduce the methodology for cold-climate engineering and use it for practical analysis of realistic estimates of insulated and non-insulated piping.

Author(s):  
Jino Peechanatt ◽  
Bjarte O. Kvamme ◽  
Ove T. Gudmestad ◽  
Yaaseen A. Amith

In recent years, there has been unprecedented interest shown in the Arctic region by the industry, as it has become increasingly accessible for oil and gas exploration, shipping, and tourism. The decrease in ice extent in the Arctic has renewed the interest in the Northern Sea route, necessitating further research to evaluate the adequacy of the equipment and appliances used on vessels traversing in polar waters. The introduction of the Polar Code by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) attempts to mitigate some of the risks endangering the vessels in Polar waters. The Polar Code is scheduled to take effect on 01.01.2017, and applies to all vessels traversing in polar waters. One of the requirements in the Polar Code is that means shall be provided to remove or prevent accretion of snow and/or ice from escape routes, embarkation areas and access points. Even though, prior to the formulation of Polar Code, the requirement for de-icing the deck surfaces on vessels already exists, the suitability of the equipment currently in use is debatable. Large amounts of energy is required to maintain an ice-free surface, which is not desirable economically or environmentally, due to the substantial increase in fuel consumption. In this study, a heated deck element manufactured by GMC Maritime AS is subjected to cross flow wind of 5 m/s, 10 m/s and 15 m/s at various sub-zero temperatures in GMC Maritime AS’s climate laboratory in Stavanger, Norway. The deck element is rated to 1400 W / m2, and is one of the designs provided by GMC Maritime AS. The power consumption of the deck element is measured and compared to theoretical heat loss calculations. Large discrepancies between the measured power consumption and the theoretical heat loss were discovered, indicating the need for further studies on the matter. As part of SARex Spitzbergen 2016, a search and rescue exercise conducted off North Spitzbergen, heated deck elements on board the Norwegian Coast Guard Vessel KV Svalbard were studied and are discussed in this paper. The heating elements in the deck elements were designed to specifications at the time of commissioning, but proves insufficient when the vessel is in transit or exposed to slight winds, allowing snow and ice to accumulate on the surface. Finally, suggestions for a more energy efficient design of deck elements are made, as the current designs are found to have potential for improvement, especially due to the lack of insulation between the deck elements and the hull of the vessel.


Author(s):  
Rezgar Zaki ◽  
Abbas Barabadi

With increasing energy demand, the oil and gas industry is pushing towards new unexplored remote Arctic areas. More than 25% of undiscovered petroleum reserves are expected to be in the Arctic region. Moreover, it is estimated that approximately 84% of the undiscovered oil and gas occurs offshore. There are numerous challenges and environmental factors that must be overcome before one can conduct oil and gas exploration, and engage production activities in Arctic regions. Superstructure icing from sea spray and atmospheric icing affect operation and maintenance of offshore production facilities in various ways including repair time, failure rate of mechanical and electrical components, power losses, life cycle cost, and safety hazard and can cause downtime in the facilities. These problems are motivating designers, manufacturers and safety researchers to find better practical solutions for ice protection technologies. Many active and passive anti-icing and de-icing techniques have been used in different industries such as electric power. However, Arctic offshore operational conditions provide new challenges for application of these methods and they have limitation of usage due to harsh and sensitive environment and wilderness, lack of infrastructure as well as distance to the market. Hence, such conditions must be considered during design and operation phase for anti-icing and de-icing techniques. This paper discusses how operational conditions of Arctic region can affect the application of available anti-icing and de-icing techniques. Moreover, it will discuss different types of ice accretion and their hazard for the Arctic offshore production facilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 01008
Author(s):  
Tatiana Chvileva

The Arctic region has a great potential in development of hydrocarbon resources and can play an important role in meeting future global energy needs. In the presented work the specific features of the Arctic hydrocarbon projects are identified. Key needs of oil and gas industry in technology development within the framework of projects of extraction of hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic are revealed. A critical analysis of technological forecasting methods is presented. Problems and prospects of their use in the conditions of the Arctic zones are established. The need for an integrated approach to forecasting the development of industrial systems of the Arctic zone is justified.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. P. Trubitsina ◽  
V. N. Bashkin

The article is devoted to the issues of geoecology and geopolitics in the Arctic. The authors reveal the need to consider geopolitical challenges in the analysis of geoecological risks (GER) of oil and gas development of the Arctic region. This is due to the intersection here of the strategic interests of several States and their focus to prove the inability of Russia to ensure environmental safety in the development of Arctic fi elds. Th e subject of GER is used as a geopolitical tool against Russia due to the probability of it becoming a key player in the region. The authors propose a model for the analysis of GER, which is based on critical loads (CL) of acidity of pollutants and includes 2 stages: 1) the stage of quantitative assessment of GER, which allows to calculate not only the magnitude of the projected changes in the state of the Arctic ecosystems, but also the probability of their occurrence; 2) the stage of management of GER taking into account geopolitical factors, assuming a qualitative expert assessment, which is a procedure for making a management decision to achieve acceptable levels of the total GER.


Author(s):  
Bjarte O. Kvamme ◽  
Jino Peechanatt ◽  
Ove T. Gudmestad ◽  
Knut E. Solberg ◽  
Yaaseen A. Amith

In recent years, there has been unprecedented interest shown in the Arctic region by the industry as it has become increasingly accessible for oil and gas exploration. This paper reviews existing literature on heat transfer coefficients and presents a comprehensive study of the heat transfer phenomenon in horizontal pipes (single/multiple pipe configurations) subjected to cross-flow wind besides the test methodology used to determine heat transfer coefficients through experiments. In this study, cross-flow winds of 5 m/s, 10 m/s, and 15 m/s blowing over several single pipe and multiple pipe configurations of diameter 25 mm and 50 mm steel pipes with insulation are examined. Based on the findings, the best correlation for use by the industry for single and multiple pipe configurations was found to be Churchill–Bernstein correlation. The deviation from the theoretical calculations and the experimental data for this correlation was found to be in the range of 0.40–1.61% for a 50 mm insulated pipe and −3.86% to −2.79% for a 25 mm insulated pipe. In the case of a multiple pipe configurations, the deviation was in the range 0.5–2.82% for 50 mm insulated pipe and 12–14% for 25 mm insulated pipes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuriy N. Golubchikov ◽  
Victor I. Kruzhalin ◽  
Aleksandra D. Nikanorova

Tourism is the key factor of human presence in the Arctic region. The number of tourist visits has been growing extensively since the end of XX century. The Arctic region is not regarded only as prospective region for oil and gas industry but now it is also recognized as the region with high potential for tourism development. The research is dedicated to the assessment of the spatial distribution of human presence within the Arctic region on the basis of statistical analysis of population and tourist visits in different parts of the Arctic. Taking into account the uncertainty of regional Arctic borders definition, which are commonly determined in accordance with given purposes and tasks, we assessed the population and tourist visits for the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation as administrative union as well as for the Arctic region as physic-geographical region.The growing number of tourists in the Arctic region influences future development prospects of the region. In 2017 the Arctic region with population of 4.3 million people was visited by 10.2 million tourist. While the favorable environmental conditions of Arctic ecosystems exist, the Arctic region should be considered as the source of nature resources for tourism and various recreational activities. Modern technologies enable the development of travel industry in the region, and therefore the industrial paradigm of “conquer” and “utilization” should be replaced with the axiological paradigm of “Arctic beauty” and recreational resource value.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Olga P. TRUBITSINA ◽  
◽  
Vladimir N. BASHKIN ◽  

The article is devoted to the issues of geopolitical risks (GPR) in the hydrocarbon development of the Russian Arctic. The authors pay special attention to the analysis of modern geopolitical and geostrategic challenges of the Arctic region development. The article identifies the key geopolitical factors that affect the sustainable development of the Arctic and analyzes the similarities and differences in the geostrategic positions of the Arctic Five. One of the most important factors of the XXI century that determines the alignment and interaction of various geopolitical forces is the struggle for resources. In this regard, an increase in GPR in the Arctic, related to its resource potential, is inevitable. For oil and gas industry facilities, GPR can be transformed into opposite environmental factors in the form of additional opportunities or threats, which the authors identify in detail for each type of risk. The authors focus on such positions of the GPR, which are related to ensuring access and obtaining control rights over the Arctic's hydrocarbon resources from different countries, the uncertainty of the legal status of the Arctic region, and the use of geoecological risks (GER) as manipulative priorities of attention to Russia's actions in the Arctic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Olga TRUBITSINA ◽  
Vladimir BASHKIN

The article is devoted to the issues of geopolitical risks (GPR) in the hydrocarbon development of the Russian Arctic. Meanwhile, the authors pay special attention to the analysis of modern geopolitical and geostrategic challenges to the development of the Arctic region. The key geopolitical factors affecting the sustainable development of the Arctic are identified, similarities and differences in the geostrategic priorities of the Arctic Five countries are analyzed. GPR can be transformed into opposite environmental factors of oil and gas industry objects in the form of additional opportunities or threats, which the authors identify in detail for each type of risk.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. P. Trubitsina ◽  
V. N. Bashkin

The article is devoted to the issues of environmental ratings as an indicators of the process of geoenvironmental risk (GER) management of Russian oil and gas companies, operating in theArctic. The authors demonstrate the algorithm of GER management model processes and reveal the need to use environmental ratings for the oil and gas industry. Particular attention is given to the issues of rating results of Environmental Responsibility of Oil and Gas companies in Russia that was held in 2014—2017 years. It was conducted by the cooperative initiative by CREON Group and WWF Russia with participation of National Rating Agency. The authors have selected from all Russian oil and gas companies only those who operating in the Arctic region and they have analyzed them. The rating's results show that the leaders are companies whose management pays special attention to gas. They are Sakhalin Energy (Sakhalin-2), Gazprom and Zarubezhneft. The authors point out that the environmental rating of Russian oil and gas companies can serve as an indicator of GER management, as a tool to inform foreign investors about the environmental impact to ensure the ecological safety of the region.


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