Traditional chemical treatment methods have considerable operation costs and represent a risk to the environment. Since 1987 Norwegian oil companies have been investigating alternative electrical heating methods for prevention of hydrate and wax plugs. A joint industry project ‘Concept Verification – Direct Heating of Oil & Gas Pipelines’ was initiated in 1996 and terminated in October 1999. During this work an electrical heating system was proved to be feasible on several fields in the North Sea. It will be installed on 7 flowlines of 13% Chromium (Crl3) with lengths between 6 km and 16 km. Electrical heating is used to maintain or raise the thermally insulated steel pipe temperature above the critical value for hydrate formation (typically 15–25 °C) or wax formation (typically 20–40°C). A single-phase power supply for the heating system is based on commercial components and connected to the platform power supply. The qualification work for the direct heating system has included full scale testing for single and parallel pipes, end termination at the template, bypass of a template and aspects concerning corrosion control. The rating of the system is dependent on the magnetic and electrical characteristics of the steel material. Such data is not commonly available.
Measurements performed during the qualification program confirm that the magnetic characteristic may vary within a wide range for a specific steel quality and that mechanical stress and heat treatment can effect the magnetic characteristic. The difference in magnetic characteristic of individual Crl3 pipes results in variation of the pipe temperature and problems concerning differential pressure during melting. The problem can be handled by dividing the pipeline into a number of sections, each with a limited variation of the magnetic characteristic, thus keeping the temperature for the whole pipeline within acceptable limits. As a part of the pipe specification both electrical and magnetic characteristic should be available. These data can be determined by measuring arrangements in the production line of the mill. Measures to limit the variation of magnetic characteristic should be discussed.
The Sterilizing Effect of the Steam-Injection Type Direct Heating System.
