Predicting Corrosion in Pipelines, Oil Wells and Gas Wells; a Computer Modeling Approach

Abstract

Hostile oil eld corrosive environments have challenged the production and transportation operations of the petroleum industry. The estimated cost of corrosion on the U.S. economy in the year 2002 resulted in an expenditure of about 276 billion U.S. dollars. This amount was an increase of more than $100 billion over a previous ve year period. Corrosion maintenance expenditures over this 5 year period were approximately 3.1% of the U.S. GDP, and stimulated congress to enact the Corrosion Prevention Act in 2007. One avenue available to successfully combat corrosion in the petroleum industry is the recent progress made in corrosion prediction applications for petroleum operations. Three such corrosion computer models have been developed at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. These models are capable of predicting the physical conditions and corrosion rates inside pipelines and in producing oil and gas wells. The models are window based and described in this paper. An expert system module was developed, which adjusts the predicated corrosion rate based on various known reservoir and well subsurface parameters.