Corrosion inhibition properties of sweet crude oil for carbon steel 1018 in NaCl solution

Abstract

Abstract Aged oil pipeline production systems, historically designed without corrosion protection due to predominantly oil-wetted conditions, now face significant changes as increased water content in produced oil arises from field maturation. This work investigates the corrosion inhibition properties of sweet crude oil on carbon steel 1018 in a CO2-saturated NaCl solution using electrochemical testing (open circuit potential, polarization resistance, electrochemical impedance, potentiodynamic polarization) and surface characterization (SEM, EDS) techniques at 50 °C and pH 6. Carbon steel specimens were immersed in crude oil for durations ranging from 0 to 144 h before undergoing corrosion testing. Results showed that a 144-h immersion in crude oil led to an 88 % reduction in corrosion rate, comparable to the efficiency of standard quaternary ammonium-based inhibitors. Furthermore, a semi-empirical model predicting uniform CO2 corrosion rates for varying oil immersion durations is proposed and validated by comparing its predictions with experimental data from the electrochemical tests.