A viscosity model of waxy-hydrate slurry

Abstract With the exploration and development of oil and gas filed going towards into deep-water fields, high waxy reservoir has much more flow assurance issue to encourage complex solids deposition in the transportation system, especially hydrates and wax. Applying risk management such as hydrate slurry technology to control hydrate blockage flow assurance have much more economic and technical advantages, comparing to the traditional methods. For waxy reservoir, it is significant to understand the viscosity of the waxy-hydrate slurry. In this work, based on a simplification idea by assuming the wax content into the viscosity, volume and density of the water-in-waxy oil emulsion, a new viscosity model of waxy-hydrate slurry is established according to the Einstein effective medium theory, based on the experiments carried out in a high-pressure rheology system with different wax contents ranging from 0.5 wt%∼2.0 wt%. The effect of the complex aggregate coupling wax-hydrate-water is considered by function the non-Newtonian coefficient by four dimensionless parameters. Well-fitting results within an improved deviation of ±15% indicate this method is feasibility. This work can provide a valuable reference for the application of hydrate slurry in deep-water fields with high wax content reservoir.