Autumn 2015 The National IOR Centre of Norway and Halliburton invited members of the technical committee to a site visit at IRIS on the occasion of the polymer shear test that is being executed at the UBBS facility at IRIS.
This article was publised 9th October 2015.
Two polymers, at three concentrations, are being pumped through chokes of different design at pressure drops over the choke from 0-50 bar. Samples of the polymers are collected at all pressure drops and properties will be measured to quantify degradation of the polymers. SNF are supporting the project with polymer as well as personnel.
Usually a single injection well off-shore is split into several subsea wells on the bottom of the sea. In order to ensure that the correct flow rate enters each subsea well one uses a choke (or a valve) to control the amount of fluids into each well. If you inject polymers into an offshore reservoir, the polymer solution has to pass through a subsea choke. In the choke the fluid is accelerated which in turns give high shear forces, and these shear forces can break the long polymer molecules into smaller molecules and thus the fluid loses its viscosity.
Amare Mebratu from Halliburton and Arne Stavland from IRIS presented the procedure for the tests, what has been done so far, and gave a tour of the test site.
Text: Mari Løvås