oa Natural Gas Hydrate Equilibrium Experiments for Qatar Natural Gas Samples

Qatar holds the world's third-largest reserves of natural gas at 890 trillion cubic feet according to proven reserves according the latest report in 2013. This plentiful natural resource makes Qatar being one of the most important key players in LNG business around the globe. Qatar's natural gas reservoirs are located 80 km off the shore in North Field. Qatar's LNG production is highly dependent on the reliable natural gas feed from the offshore wellheads to on shore processing facilities. Typical gas composition and pipeline operating conditions makes the flow assurance quite challenging in the North Field which causes unplanned shutdowns and jeopardizes the reliable LNG export to end users. Classical hydrate formation inhibition methods are used in order to prevent plugging of the pipelines however gas industry still suffers from hydrate formation conditions for changing gas concentration, determination of the total amount of inhibitors to be injected and the recovery of the injected inhibitors from the pipeline. These challenges make gas industry in Qatar dependent on the external resources in finding temporary solutions, which currently is not available locally in Qatar. This work presents recent investigation on natural gas hydrates for Qatari type natural gas mixtures with initiatives aimed at helping producers minimize costs, optimize operations, and prevent interruption of gas flow in offshore drilling and production. We present preliminary results and data from a newly commissioned high pressure hydrate autoclave. Calibrations of the autoclave with pure methane and carbon dioxide were compared with literature and Hydraflash software. Upon validation of the calibration data and determination of the apparatus uncertainty, results for hydrate formation equilibrium points for Qatar natural gas sample were collected and were compared with a theoretical data obtained from Hydraflash software.