Design Options for Avoiding Hydrates in Deep Offshore Production

Hydrate blockage in subsea systems is responsible for a portion of lost profits in several deepwater oil fields. This problem tends to worsen in the fields recently discovered in Brazilian Pre-Salt layer due to greater water depth, higher pressure, lower temperature, and oil more prone to agglomerate. Additionally, in this scenario, the logistic for hydrate remediation, if a rig is required, is even more complex due to the greater distance from shore. The overall conditions found in Brazil offshore fields prior to Pre-Salt development allowed applying a less conservative hydrate prevention design when compared to other areas throughout the world. Now, while the global trend is to reduce the safety margin to manage hydrate risk rather than simply avoid them, it may be interesting to increase flow assurance design robustness for some critical fields. This paper presents some suggestions in order to meet this goal.