Experimental and modeling study of kinetics for methane hydrate formation in a crude oil-in-water emulsion

A low-viscosity emulsion of crude oil in water can be believed to be the bulk of a flow regime in a pipeline. To differentiate which crude oil would and which would not counter the blockage of flow due to gas hydrate formation in flow channels, varying amount of crude oil in water emulsion without any other extraneous additives has undergone methane gas hydrate formation in an autoclave cell. Crude oil was able to thermodynamically inhibit the gas hydrate formation as observed from its hydrate stability zone. The normalized rate of hydrate formation in the emulsion has been calculated from an illustrative chemical affinity model, which showed a decrease in the methane consumption (decreased normalized rate constant) with an increase in the oil content in the emulsion. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of the emulsion and characteristic properties of the crude oil have been used to find the chemical component that could be pivotal in self-inhibitory characteristic of the crude oil collected from Ankleshwar, India, against a situation of clogged flow due to formation of gas hydrate and establish flow assurance.