Solid gel pigs for cleaning production pipelines

Conference · Thu Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:268192

Powell, D E; Bohon, W M ^[1]; Chesnut, G R ^[2]

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1. ARCO Alaska, Inc., Anchorage, AK (United States)
2. ARCO Exploration and Production Technology, Plano, TX (United States)

Many oil fields, such as that at Kuparuk, on the North Slope of Alaska, have been built as a trunk and lateral gathering system, with many different pipeline diameters in a branched network. No launchers nor receivers were built for the Kuparuk oil production pipelines. The high cost of retrofitting launchers and receivers prompted investigation of alternative methods for cleaning the pipelines. This paper describes a novel approach to mold solid gelatin pigs in bypass lines, and to run those pigs through the production pipelines to the primary separators. The gelatin pigs would slowly melt, eliminating the need for receivers. Field and laboratory testing showed that gelatin pigs could not effectively clean the pipelines. The addition of cross linking agents could increase the mechanical integrity of the gelatin pigs, but also elevated the melting temperatures above the operating temperatures of the primary separators. As such, they were not meltable (in time), and no benefits could be obtained by the use of solid gelatin pigs for cleaning applications.

• OSTI ID: 268192
• Report Number(s): CONF-960389--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
CHEMICAL PREPARATION
CLEANING
CROSS-LINKING
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FIELD TESTS
GELATIN
MAINTENANCE FACILITIES
MELTING
MELTING POINTS
OIL FIELDS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PIPELINES
REMOVAL
TEST FACILITIES