Research and Application of the Comprehensive Corrosion Prevention Technology for Offshore Thermal Wells in Bohai Oilfield

Abstract

AbstractMulti-component thermal fluid stimulation has been conducted in Bohai Oilfield for about ten years and at the early stage of the pilot, the corrosion of the thermal fluid injection tubing is severe with the existence of the oxygen and the carbon dioxide under high temperature conditions, which result in damage of the insulation tubing, increase of the production cost and even unwanted workover.For solving the corrosion problem and extending the working life of the tubing, the corrosion mechanisms is researched and analyzed at the first place. XRD and SEM is applied for analyzing the corrosion product. The results show that the corrosion is mainly caused by the high temperature carbon dioxide and vestigial oxygen. The high fluid flowing velocity and variable inner diameter of the insulation tubing also accelerate the corrosion process. Then, further study of corrosion behavior and corrosion prevention technology are proceeded.Corrosion behavior study is carried out through indoor experiment. The results indicate that steel corrosion rate would reach the maximum value at the temperature of about 80 centigrade. At low temperature range, the corrosion is mainly dominated by CO2, and at high temperature range, the corrosion is mainly dominated by O2. For O2 corrosion at the conditions of about 370 centigrade and 15MPa, if the O2 concentration is below 1000 ppm, the corrosion rate would be lower than 0.076mm/a and when the concentration reaches about 1%, the corrosion rate would rapidly increase to be about 2.38mm/a. Based on the analysis above, high temperature corrosion inhibitor is researched and selected. The inhibition efficiency of the optimized inhibitor could be higher than 90% which could meet the technical requirement for corrosion prevention. For further increasing the efficiency of the corrosion prevention, tubing with higher corrosion resistance is used. For the existence of the CO2 and O2 in the inner tubing during the injection process, the selected corrosion inhibitor is injected before the thermal fluid for forming the protective film at the inner side. And for the annular space, high purity Nitrogen which is higher than 99.9% is injected for lowering its O2 concentration.Till now, the comprehensive corrosion prevention technology has been applied for field test for nearly 30 well times. The corrosion problem has been greatly solved, the corrosion rate is lower than 0.1mm/a and no severe corrosion occurs during the thermal fluid injection process. Its successful application would provide a guidance and technical support for the subsequent offshore thermal exploitation.