A fundamental model of wax deposition in subsea oil pipelines

Wax deposition in subsea pipelines is a significant economic issue in the petroleum industry. A mathematical model has been developed to predict the increase in both the deposit thickness and the wax fraction of the deposit using a fundamental analysis of the heat and mass transfer for laminar and turbulent flow conditions. It was found that the precipitation of wax in the oil is a competing phenomenon with deposition. Two existing approaches consider either no precipitation (the independent heat and mass transfer model) or instantaneous precipitation (the solubility model) and result in either an overprediction or an underprediction of deposit thickness. By accounting for the kinetics of wax precipitation of wax in the oil (the kinetic model), accurate predictions for wax deposition for both lab‐scale and pilot‐scale flow‐loop experiments with three different oils were achieved. Furthermore, this kinetic model for wax precipitation in the oil was used to compare field‐scale deposition predictions for different oils. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011