Descaling

The energy sector, especially the oil and gas industry, transports enormous amounts of materials through pipe systems. It can be quite a challenge to keep the pipes free of unwanted or damaging substances such as rust, calcium scale, hydrocarbons and other organic/inorganic materials. Deposits of such fouling substances can negatively affect the performance of the process systems by reducing flow, increasing pressure drop, impairing heat transfer or, in the worst case, causing blockages, corrosion or leaks. Although equipment can be designed to minimize these deposits, it can never be entirely eliminated and chemical cleaning and descaling is therefore a necessity.

Through many years of experience Ocean Team has build up unique knowledge of what chemicals to use depending the situation. We are constantly testing new chemicals to find some that are more efficient and environmentally friendly, and we only select the best to be used in our services. So when you pick Ocean Team as your chemical cleaning partner, you are sure to get the best possible solutions for you, your systems, and the environment. You can read more about our chemical cleaning services through the menu or learn more about fouling deposits and descaling below.

Lime scale is a big problem for many technical systems, e.g. oil winning processes on production platforms. Scale often deposits in SSSVs in wells and master, wing- and choke-valves on Xmas trees. Flow lines, produced water systems, separators, flair drums, hydrocyclones, coolers, heat exchangers, cooling water systems, etc. also quite often fall victim to this. Scale negatively affects the performance of processes by reducing flow, increasing pressure drop, impairing heat transfer or, in the worst case, causing blockages, corrosion or leaks. Oil production is thus reduced over time, and eventually, shutdown becomes unavoidable.

Descaling can be done in a range of ways. One method is to remove scale using conventional chemical, another is mechanical cleaning, e.g. hydrojetting. However, the fluid used in the part of the system being cleaned cannot be used other than for cleaning. This is a big disadvantage as it will often mean that it is necessary to shut down the process for cleaning purposes etc. in order to remove corrosion. Such interruption can be very expensive because production is lost while cleaning is performed. Ocean Team has vast knowledge and experience with descaling “live” processes and cooling systems. Meaning you will have no production loss.

In most descaling processes, Ocean Team uses commodity chemicals mixed with a corrosion inhibitor (to prevent or remove corrosion, especially in carbon steel) and a surfactant (to reduce permeability to oil, water or gas and to provide better cleanup results).

Ocean Team’s in-line cleaning process allows production to continue, for instance pumping up and re-pumping of crude oil. As it is not necessary to interrupt oil production during the descaling process, our in-line descaling program offers big savings in comparison to other chemical cleaning methods.

Another significant advantage of our descaling program is that no expensive installation work is required to carry out the cleaning process. This results in major savings in terms of time and reduces the number of people required for completing the job, which in turn cuts costs and improves efficiency.

Read more about Oil & Gas