(414h) A Strategy for Derisking Halite Deposition in Deep Water Wells Using CFD and Cold-Finger Experiments

Certain reservoirs are in higher risk for halite deposition. To reduce halite deposition and ensure production, a strategy combines the experimental data and CFD models was developed to combine the effects of flow velocity, water fraction, halite concentration and well conditions to generate a spreadsheet model to quickly screen halite deposition risks and water flush schedules. Cold-finger experiments were conducted in Shell’s lab under well controlled conditions. With fine-tuned procedures halite deposition can form uniformly and be accurately measured. The kinetics of crystallization was taken from the work of Choi (2005) and incorporated into the CFD model with a mass transfer limitation function with Sherwood number (Hasson, 1968; Nesic, 1996) near the wall. The developed model was then used to predict published data by Xie et al. (2022) for further validation.

References

1. Choi, B. S. (2005). Crystallization characteristics of NaCl crystal size distribution associated with a CMSMPR crystallizer. Salt Lake City: PhD Thesis, U of Utah.
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4. Xie, D., Wang, T., Ben, J., He, T., Chai, G., & Wang, D. (2022). Mathematic modeling of the salt deposits growing on the tubing during. Journal of Energy Storage.