Thursday, June 8, 2017

Understanding The Process Of Paraffin Removal

By Mary Williams


In the oil extraction industry, paraffin wax build-up is a familiar issue. Paraffin wax has a lot of crippling effects on the oil well production. They cause a lot of oil to precipitate, which over time, reduces the oil flow. With time, oil production might stop completely. Oil is among one of the most important natural resources on earth. Thus paraffin removal is important whenever it occurs.

Oil is mined. This is done by drilling in to the earth surface to create oil wells. This wells are designed to bring oil to the surface. The oil sometimes comes to the surface along with natural gas in it. Although wells to bring natural gas can be dug separately. Before the drilling of wells are done a study has to be done to determine the ideal location of the well.

Those people who carry out the research are known as geologists. The place identified helps in enhancing oil production. It also helps in identifying the presence of hydrocarbons. One should also check the point of injection to ensure they are able to release gas and water. A target is usually the end point where oil or gas can be inclined in the well.

After all the location has been identified the drilling can commence. The well size is limited to the required size. Sections of steel pipe slightly smaller than the oil well are inserted in to the hole. Safety measures have to be taken to ensure the site is safe. These safety measures include casting cement at the outside of the casing.

The importance of casting the cement is to offer the well structural integrity. It eliminates the possibilities of dangerous high pressure zones. An example of organic crude oil is paraffin wax. It is a mixture containing asphaltenes and kerosene. There are some components found in kerosene deposits, which include silt, gums, salt crystals, sand and a lot of resin. It is therefore important to have a continuous removal of kerosene from the oil wells.

Removal of kerosene involves many different methods. When one is selecting the suitable method, they should consider safety first. Some of the methods like chemical solvents need one to use caustic reagents. This is because they are dangerous to people working on the oil sites. Sometimes they also damage the drilling equipment. In addition, all chemicals have toxins thus not healthy to human life.

There are a range of techniques for eliminating the wax build ups. These methods include, Mechanical methods, scraping method, coiled tubing, thermal method, hot oiling, hot water, and chemical and wax solvents. There are cases when several of these methods are used in combination.

Before choosing any method one should also first consider the nature of a wax build up. The oil wells that are affected by this problem may also be experiencing other fouling as well. So it is important for a person to investigate the nature of a build-up and the extend of it. And also to see if there are other problems as well.




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