A New Transient Thermal Model for Predicting Cooling Temperature and Cooldown Time of a Subsea Pipe-in-Pipe Flowline System Transporting Waxy Hydrocarbons

The proper understanding of cooling temperature and cooldown time for the operation of a subsea system producing hydrocarbons from the reservoir to the host facility is one of the important flow assurance issues for managing heat retention in the production system due to solids formation and their deposition. In this paper, an analytical transient thermal model is developed for determining the cooling temperature and cooldown time for shut-in operations of a subsea pipe-in-pipe production system, transporting waxy crude oil from the reservoir to the host facility. Here, the cooldown time is defined as the time when the fluid temperature approaches the wax appearance temperature before reaching the hydrate formation temperature during any shut-in operations. The analytical model builds upon an inhomogeneous transient method incorporating an internal temperature gradient. The model results are benchmarked against the commercial OLGA simulation results for a few selected deepwater pipe-in-pipe flowline configuration. The model predictions resemble well with OLGA results over a range of conditions. The analytical model could optimize dry insulation and cooldown time requirements efficiently for the assumed PIP flowline configurations and fluid properties under any subsea environments.