Significant part of the Brazilian oil reserves is located in ultradeepwater fields (WD > 1500 m). In this scenario, flow assurance plays a crucial role due to the existing high pressures and low temperatures. This paper focuses on the strategies concerning flow assurance issues for the near future. These strategies are strongly based on our specific field experiences as well as on the foreseeable technological scenario. The future, as treated in this work, refers to the short and mid-term future and not to the prospective long term one. Thus, it will mainly discuss current R&D in flow assurance activities to tackle existing problems and the ones foreseen for the discoveries already in development. In order to facilitate the understanding of our vision, a brief summary about todays flow assurance issues is presented. Currently, the main flow assurance concerns are related to hydrate formation and wax deposition. Accordingly, design criteria and operational procedures to avoid these problems are briefly described. There is also an increasing concern about heavy and extraheavy oil production, since a relevant part of recent offshore discoveries involves this type of oil. Among the initiatives that are being taken aiming at optimizing flow assurance design in the near future, one can mention: 1. rheology of heavy oil and water in oil emulsion; 2. heavy oil multiphase flow (gas-liquid) simulation; 3. hydrate slurry transportability; 4. improvements on wax deposition modeling; and 5. improvements on heat management.
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