Fighting Naphthenate Deposition at the Heidrun Field

摘要

At the Statoil-operated Heidrun-field in the Norwegian Sea,naphthenate deposits were first observed during a maintenanceshutdown in September 1996. Thereafter the problemincreased, and by the end of 1997 it was recognised as aconstant threat against continuous production. The presentpaper describes both the short-term measures taken to gaincontrol of the problem in the early days, and the quest for amore elegant long-term solution. Statoil is continuouslyworking to increase its fundamental understanding of thenaphthenate problems and to improve the naphthenateinhibitors used at the Heidrun field.