Industrial Case Studies
Natural gas and oil producer
Installer
HydroFLOW West Inc.
Customer
Natural gas and oil producer in Nikiski, Alaska, USA.
Application
Offshore petroleum production operation. The device was installed on a 4.5” outer diameter recycled water pipe, after the separator.
Installed Unit
HydroFLOW i120.
Success Factor
Reduce scale accumulation inside the pipe and possibly soften existing scale deposits. The scale is predominantly made up of iron, in addition, lab analysis of the scale detected small quantities of magnesium, calcium carbonate and silicon.
Results
- One week after the HydroFLOW i120 was installed – The scale was much softer and easily removed with a knife.
- One month after the HydroFLOW i120 was installed – Apart from what seems like a thin magnetite layer, the hard scale is not accumulating on the area that was cleaned after the first inspection. The existing scale can be flaked off with a finger and is roughly 1/8” to 1/4” thick. The customer’s personnel were very surprised because typically removal of scale involves hard manual labor.
- A “T” section was removed from the main line in order to inspect the inside of the pipe. It was noticed that the rate of scale removal from the bottom was much faster than the top and sides. The reason for this is because the bottom of the pipe has a constant flow of water which allows the scale to be removed more efficiently.
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