A Multiscale, Multiphase Approach to Gas Hydrates: Learnings and Solutions from the Lab to the Field
Abstract: Gas hydrates, formed from water and small-sized molecules bounded by pressure and temperature conditions, have many facets which in my view can be seen as good, bad, ugly, and beautiful. In whichever way one consider gas hydrates, a multiscale and multiphase approach must be employed to account for all the interactions that they manifest under arrested or flowing conditions, with all the phases present (gas, liquid, solid), and at the scales ranging from pores to flow lines to reservoirs. While a large body of knowledge on gas hydrates has been generated over the last decade applied to gas hydrates in multiphase systems, there has been a significant knowledge gap in considering the formation of gas hydrates in multiphase systems under multiphase flow conditions that are typically encountered in productions flowlines. Multiphase flow plays a critical and defining role in the formation, accumulation, and transportability of gas hydrates. Our recent focus on gas hydrates and multiphase flow has expanded the understanding on the process of hydrate formation and given new insight into the mechanism for hydrate agglomeration, deposition, and transportability. Our new ideas challenge the conventional understanding of hydrates but provide new directions for the fundamental thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport processes of hydrates in multiphase flow systems.