IPTC-22235-MS

Foams to Control Slugging Issues in Pipeline - From Lab to Simulation

Ivy Chai Ching Hsia, Bishop Falope, Nor Hadhirah Halim, and M Azmeer Rodzali, PETRONAS Research Sdn.

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Bhd.

Copyright 2022, International Petroleum Technology Conference DOI 10.2523/IPTC-22235-MS

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 21-23 February 2022.

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Abstract
Hydrodynamic slugging or two-phase liquid-gas flow instability in pipeline has caused loss in flow capacity
and intense vibration at the separator leading to integrity issues. This issue can be resolve using foams
generated from surfactants which are introduced into the pipeline to entrap and slow down gas flow, thus
enhance its mixing with liquids. To understand how the behaviour or foams in a pipeline impact or alleviate
slugging performances, the foams behaviour in the pipeline was simulated using OLGA. First, two main
parameters i.e. foams viscosity and interfacial tension in the presence of crude oil were obtained from
precision lab experiments. Using a foam rheometer, foam viscosity with crude oil was measured under actual
pipeline conditions. Surfactant and crude oil were injected into the rheometer until 500 psi was reached.
Then, gas was injected into the loop at a given foam quality (fg). Foam quality, or the gas-liquid ratio was
sensitized to 40- and 50% (e.g. fg=40 is 40% gas volume of the total fluids). Shear rates of 100 to 1000 s-1
were applied, and foam viscosities were recorded. For interfacial tension test, the pendant drop method was
used. A drop of aged emulsion was drop into a continuous phase of nitrogen gas. The interfacial tension
values were assumed as gas-water (without and with surfactant) and gas-oil, at 90:10 water:crude oil cut as
per field condition. In the model, first the baseline of the hydrodynamic slugging behaviour was established
and simulated using actual pipeline dimension, gas and liquid flow rates, and actual fluids properties, which
showed obvious liquid fluctuations. The simulation established at which viscosity and interfacial tension
values would have an impact in alleviating slugging by interpreting the output QLT - total liquid volume
flow (bbl/d). Foam viscosity for both fg=40 and 50 showed shear thinning behaviour i.e. as shear rate
increases, viscosity falls as accordance to the power law. In the model, viscosity as low as 2.5 cP (at 1000
s-1, fg=40) showed reduction in liquid fluctuations as read from the QLT arriving at the inlet of the pipeline,
compared to baseline without foam viscosity input. Liquid fluctuations were reduced by 97% just from
viscosity change due to presence of foam. Interfacial tension input at 0.024 and 0.021 mN/m for gas-brine
and gas-oil, respectively in the presence of surfactant was able to reduce the number of QLT spikes by
24%. By combining the inputs of both parameters, a reduction of QLT or liquid fluctuations by a total of
97% was recorded. This study showed that foams were able to slow down gas velocity and reduced liquid
fluctuations thus reducing slugging in one of the problematic pipelines in Malaysia. Accurate foam viscosity
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measurements generated from the lab remains a vital input to the model - so as to understand behaviour of
foam and quantify its impact before actual field applications.
Keyword: slugging, pipeline, foam viscosity, interfacial tension, OLGA

Introduction
Hydrodynamic slugging or instability of waves at certain gas-liquid flow rates in pipeline has been identified
and acknowledged as pertinent and was of concern in several fields in Malaysia. In one of the fields, the loss

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in flow capacity (i.e. liquid hold-up) from a producing pipeline was almost 50% due to slugging, causing
gas production deferment as much as 30 million scf/day. Many a times, severe vibrations from the pipeline
to the separator was felt at the platform leading to question of mechanical integrity of the separator and
anticipated high maintenance costs.
The issues of slugging can be solved with the used of foams introduced into the pipeline to slow down
gas velocity and enhance mixing with liquid. Slugs occur because of the different relative phase superficial
velocities between gas and liquid (Figure 1). Barreto et al. (2017) reported that foams generated from
surfactant were able to suppress severe slugging in their experimental investigations. Foam injection into
the wellbore has proven to act as a flow stabilizer thus removed the slugging in a well and improved gas
lift utilization (Sarica et al., 2014; Lehrer, et al., 2019). Foams from surfactant injection increases gas’
viscosity thus reducing gas movement and velocity, but with a pressure penalty. Surfactant concentration
also decreases the liquid's surface tension to a minimum value reached when micelles start to form, called
the critical micelle concentration (CMC). The understanding of reducing liquid surface tension is important
because near or 2-3x the surfactants’ CMC, foams generated are said to be stable (Derikvand and Riazi
2016; Briceño-Ahumada and Langevin 2017; Li et al. 2019). The importance of crude oil inclusion into
our laboratory testings is to establish the actual performance of the surfactant and the impact of crude oil to
viscosity and interfacial tension in order to replicate actual fluid propertie i.e. water-cut, emulsion tendencies
of the field. Experimental research was performed to understand deliquification of pipeline (Bebucci et al.
2015) and extensive study on the effects of surfactant on gas-liquid behaviour by Sarica et al.(2014) showed
that foam from surfactant injection can eliminate slugging and decrease of pressure drop over the pipeline.

Figure 1—Schematic of the vertical flow patterns occurring due to different

superficial velocity of between gas (white) and liquid (blue) (van Nimwegen, 2015)
IPTC-22235-MS 3

OLGA software has been used to simulate flow of actual pipeline conditions, and in the case of slugging,
a base model is built to first establish the slugging conditions using parameters obtained from the field of
interest. OLGA has been used extensively (Choi et al. 2012; Iwuchukwu et al. 2017; Theyab and Theyab,
2018) to simulate liquid and gas velocity, liquids holdups, and pressure gradient that are pre-conditions
for hydrodynamic slugging at pipelines and risers. Modification to the model to include input parameters
of foams such as viscosity and interfacial tension between two phases to determine if they can suppress
foams, reading changes in the total liquid volume flow coming from the pipeline throughout the extend
of the pipeline (as in duration). In this paper, we seek to understand how to determine foam viscosity and

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interfacial tension in the presence of crude oil using precision laboratory instrumentation and using these
as input into OLGA to calculate the percent reduction in liquid flow volume and fluctuations of an actual
pipeline facing slug issues.

Methodology
Surfactant used in generating foam is a proprietary formulation that is diluted to different concentration
using produced brine of field of interest in Malaysia – Field BA. Important characteristics of the foam are
studied in the laboaratory, in the presence of crude oil: i) foam viscosity at different foam quality and ii)
interfacial tension between gas-water and gas-oil.
Crude oil was obtained from Field B, having properties as follows: density of 0.8376 g/mL (15°C),
kinematic viscosity of 1.044 mm2/s (25°C), total acid number of 0.18 mg KOH/g and asphaltene content of
0.01% w/w. Brine are prepared synthetically made with pure salts to mimic produced water conditions of
the pipeline. Gas nitrogen (99.999% purity) for both foam viscosity and interfactial tension measurements.

Laboratory Experiments
Foam viscosity
Foam viscosity was conducted using a Pressurized Foam Rheometer Model 8500 by Chandler Engineering.
Figure 2 shows the schematics of the rheometer which is fully automated, closed-loop system that comprises
of both hardware and software for the study of foam rheology over a range of shear rate, foam qualities and
shear stresses. This system consists of several components which includes Coriolis mass flow meter, HPHT
view cell with CCD camera system, positive displacement (PD) pump, liquid and gas control valves, syringe
pumps for sample injection, back-pressure regulator and high pressure gas booster pump. In foam rheology
test, the surfactant and crude oil were pumped separately, and foams were generated in a recirculating loop
made of small diameter steel pipes and the pressure drop over a certain length is measured through which
the rheological values were computed. Foams were sheared at different shear rate ranging from 50 to 1000
sec−1 and the data of shear rate versus apparent viscosity were recorded for different quality foams. The
foam was subjected pressure of 500psi and temperature of 38°C inside the foam rheometer during the test
as per Field BA conditions.
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Figure 2—Schematic of Pressurized Foam Rheometer Model 8500 (taken from Ahmed et al., 2017)

Interfacial tension (IFT)

In preparation of the gas-water-crude oil system, a Schott bottle containing surfactant:oil in 90:10 v/v ratio
(field's water-cut), shaken vigorously and aged for 24 hours. In Figure 3, we show the preparation of the
emulsion to represent oil-in-water O/W (bottom layer) and water-in-oil W/O (upper layer) which was aged
for 24 hr. The bottom layer of the sample represented the gas-water phase during IFT measurements, while
the emulsion sampled from the upper layer represented gas-oil IFT measurement. A tensiometer using a
pendant drop method was employed to measure IFT between gas-water (term interchangeable with: brine)
and gas-oil.

Figure 3—Aged emulsion sample used to represent gas-water (bottom layer O/W), and gas-oil (upper layer W/O)

This pendant drop tensiometry procedure is modified from Berry et al. (2015)– is divided into two sub-
routines: firstly, the drop profile is extracted from an experimental image, and secondly, the Young–Laplace
equation is iteratively solved to find the physical parameters that most precisely describe the extracted drop
profile using optimisation techniques. As for the tensiometer, the chamber was filled with nitrogen gas as
continuous phase, and then a drop of the aged liquid was introduced with a microneedle into the chamber
from the top (Figure 4). The IFT value of the droplet was taken every 5 minutes until drop diameter readings
have stabilized. The test was repeated with the presence of the surfactant in the water phase.
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Figure 4—IFT measuring of gas-water and gas oil. Emulsion is
drop into a chamber containing nitrogen gas as continuous phase.

OLGA Simulation
The baseline model of the slugging at Field BA was first established in OLGA. Figure 5 shows the OLGA
baseline model of the pipelines leading from one producing field BADP-E platform to a defunct slug catcher,
and therefore showed a surge in liquid-gas slugs going into separator V2000 at BADP-A platform. OLGA
inputs data are as follows: pipeline is 16-inches, and the distance between BADP-E and V2000 is 1.2 km
and the simulation results are from the inlet to outlet accounting for current production data (i.e. flow rates,
water cut, gas-liquid ratio), fluids properties such as temperature and pressure and fluids characteristics
(PVT data). The effects of foams such as foams viscosity and surface/interfacial tension are used as inputs
to the model to account for the effects of those parameters - whether singularly or in combination. In the
simulation, impact on slugging is interpreted from the output entitled QLT - total liquid volume flow (bbl/d).

Figure 5—OLGA slugging baseline model at Field BA

Results and Discussion

Foam viscosity and effect to QLT
Foam viscosities at different shear rate and at both fg=40 and 50 showed shear thinning behaviour i.e.
as shear rate increases, viscosity falls (Figure 6). This is accordance to the power law commonly shown
6 IPTC-22235-MS

by foams. We input a range of foam viscosities from the lab into the model at the shear rate of interes
pipeline. Results in Figure 7 showed that viscosity as low as 2.5 cP (at 1000 s-1, fg=40) had a reduction in
liquid fluctuations or spikes as read from the QLT (red line) arriving at the inlet of the pipeline, compared
to baseline without foam viscosity input (black line). Liquid fluctuations or spikes (in simulation) were
drastically reduced by 97%. The QLT with presence of foams (red line) were stable throughout the entire
length of the pipeline. This result describes the promising effects of foam viscosity in alleviating slugging
in pipeline. With surfactants, foams can be generated and the increase in foam viscosity brings stability to
foam lamella. When lamellae are stable, the gas in entrapped wihin the lamellae and was able to slow down

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its movement throughout the entire length of the pipeline (or for 3 hours).

Figure 6—Foam viscosity in the presence of crude oil at different shear rate (s−1)

Figure 7—Total Liquid volume (QLT) for foam viscosity effects alone

Interfacial tension and effects to QLT

At 90:10 brine:oil ratio water-cut, the IFT measurements were given in Table 1. The gas-water and gas-oil
without surfactant was computed as baseline. As a verification, these values (without surfactant) were very
close to the PVT data of Field B (unreported). When we foams are introduced, we change these IFT data
into the model and compute the QLT based on IFT effects alone. Figure 8 showed that IFT of both phases
into the model resulted in 24% reduction in the number of liquid fluctuation or spikes (red line) compare to
baseline results (black line). This shows the positive effect of IFT in suppression of slugging.
IPTC-22235-MS 7

Table 1—IFT measurements for gas-water and gas-oil phases, with and without surfactant

Current water cut Pendant drop Interfacial tension (IFT) (mN/m)

(water:oil) at Field B
Without surfactant With surfactant

Gas-water Gas-oil Gas-water Gas-oil

90:10 0.043 0.027 0.024 0.021

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Figure 8—Total Liquid volume (QLT) for IFT effects alone

The effect of IFT was investigated because the presence of surfactant would have changed the interfacial
tension of two fluids. As with gas-water and gas-oil where these interphases are present in the foams system,
the lowering of IFT indicated that foams are being generated and there is some miscibility between oil and
water(surfactant) with the gas. The lowering of IFT impacts the gas-water interphase more than gas-oil
which is expected as surfactants are being mixed in the water-phase. The presence of surfactant molecules at
the foam lamellae (gas-liquids interphase) encourages mixing of the fluids by slowing down the gas velocity
(Li et al. 2019). These result showed that foamer injection was able to lower the gas-oil and gas-water
interfacial tension, and the slugging was shown to have dampened with this single change in IFT properties.

Combination of foam viscosity and interfacial tension to QLT

The effects of combining both foam viscosity and IFT was simulated in OLGA. Figure 9 showed a 97%
of the liquid fluctuations have been significantly suppressed. Experimental and simulation studies on the
topic of slugging by van Nimwegen (2015) and Shuard, et al. (2016) indicated that viscosity, density, and
surface(interfacial) tension of the foams are important factors in influencing flow behaviour by mechanisms
of gas entrapment to reduce its velocity.
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Figure 9—Total Liquid volume (QLT) for combined effects of Foam Viscosity and IFT

Our laboratory test showed that at 1000 s−1 shear rate, foam viscosity was 2.5 cP which in this case should
be sufficient in stabilizing flow thus preventing slug flow. Nevertheless, we do expect lower values of the
viscosities as it is anticipated that in actual pipelines of Field BA, shear rates may go highter than 1000
s−1. Sensitivity studyies will be conducted to ascertain the range of viscosity and IFT for this surfactant to
which slugging is said to be reduced or giving no effects. The primary fluid properties impacted by foamer
injection i.e. gas viscosity and interfacial tension, and in combination, have alleviated slugging at Field BA.

Summary
The laboratory inputs together with the OLGA simulations of these critical parameters are considered
sufficient demonstration of the impact of foamer on slugging performance. In the absence of flow loops
to simulate slugging in pipelines and to validate the foams behaviour, the use of OLGA still provides
confidence in the application of foams in pipelines in addition to time saving, reduction of laborious and
complex experimentations involving crude oil, and other capital expenditure.

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