WAX DEPOSITION ANALYSIS OF WAXY CRUDE OIL THROUGH FLOW LOOP TEST AT PT. GMJ GLOBAL ENERGY

Abstract

Flow assurance is one of the most critical issues in oil and gas production phase. Crude oil with high viscosity often contains heavy material such as wax, paraffin, and asphaltene that causes problem of deposition and scaling inside the production pipeline. Wax deposits can reduce the diameter of pipeline so that the quantity of produced oil does not reach its optimum level nor meets the requirement. Therefore, this issue can constrain the production activity, causes additional treatment, and costs millions of investments. Common preventive actions for such problem are temperature controlling at certain points along the pipeline, adding chemicals, and pipeline coating with certain materials.