Discussion on Design of Flow Assurance for High Pour Point Crude Oil Transportation Pipeline

Flow assurance is very important for design and operation management of the high pour point crude oil transportation pipeline. This paper choose one oil pipeline of CNOOC as an analysis example. Research on two main design plan according to the thermal management mode. In the heating, hot water preheating and displacement plan, the best temperature of hot water is existed. Hot water 88°C will be adopted. The greater of the preheating water flowrate, benefits thepreheating. The design flowrate 6359m3/d will be used. In skin effect electric heat plan, the pipeline insulation layer thickness of 80 mm and skin heating power of 2534 kw will be used through technical economical comparison, and the advantage of skin effect electric heat plan is analyzed relative to heating, hot water preheating and the displacement plan. The above research results may provide technical reference for the future design of high pour point crude oil transportation pipeline.