Flow Assurance Solids in Oil and Gas Production

Jon Steinar Gudmundsson is professor emeritus in petroleum engineering at NTNU in Trondheim. Educated in chemical engineering in Edinburgh (Scotland) and Birmingham (England), the author worked in geothermal engineering in his native Iceland for many years. From 1981, the author was an associated professor of petroleum engineering and the manager of the Stanford Geothermal Program. From 1985, the author served as the director of the UNU Geothermal Training Programme in Reykjavík. In 1989, the author was appointed professor of petroleum engineering at NTNU. Courses taught include production engineering, petroleum processing and natural gas technology. Fluid flow has been central in the authors R&D, advising masters and doctoral students on a wide-range of topics. Long-term activities include new technology for the storage and transport of frozen natural gas hydrate (and cold-flow), in cooperation with industrial partners. Also, the development of a new technology (pressure pulse) to monitor deposit thickness in pipelines, now available from a major service company. Jon is a member of scientific academies in Iceland and Norway, and the professional societies TEKNA (Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals) and SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers). Community service includes eight years on the Trondheim City Council. Lastly and most important, the author is married and has three grown-up children and presently two grandchildren.

"The impact of solids on the production of oil and gas resources is varied and profound. Yet it has been hard to find a comprehensive book that describes their properties, behavior and consequences. This book is laid out very usefully, in the important oilfield solids each have their own chapter dedicated to their properties and impact. The reader is not burdened with too much theory or fundamentals in those chapters, yet the details of the theory and fundamentals are all covered in the appendices for those who choose to delve deeper."Roland N. Horne, Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Stanford University, USA."Congratulations to Professor Gudmundsson with this comprehensive new flow assurance book. Flow assurance is a key petroleum engineering challenge to understand, model, predict and mitigate or eliminate to the maximum extent unless you want initially open pipelines and flowlines to turn into ‘candle lights’ through which nothing flows or into closed-up reservoirs in the near well-bore region. Everything else in a field development can be perfect; if you get flow assurance wrong, the total reservoir ‘plumbing system’ may be nothing like you thought and expensive retro-fits can be expensive at best."Dr. Helge H. Haldorsen, 2015 President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

• Introduction. Basic Phenomena. Asphaltene. Paraffin Wax. Natural Gas Hydrate. Inorganic Scale. Napththenates. Other Solids. References. Appendices.