A prediction method of natural gas hydrate formation in deepwater gas well and its application

To prevent the deposition of natural gas hydrate in deepwater gas well, the hydrate formation area in wellbore must be predicted. Herein, by comparing four prediction methods of temperature in pipe with field data and comparing five prediction methods of hydrate formation with experiment data, a method based on OLGA & PVTsim for predicting the hydrate formation area in wellbore was proposed. Meanwhile, The hydrate formation under the conditions of steady production, throttling and shut-in was predicted by using this method based on a well data in the South China Sea. The results indicate that the hydrate formation area decreases with the increase of gas production, inhibitor concentrations and the thickness of insulation materials and increases with the increase of thermal conductivity of insulation materials and shutdown time. Throttling effect causes a plunge in temperature and pressure in wellbore, thus leading to an increase of hydrate formation area.