The Centre for Gas Hydrate Research, with its extensive experimental and modelling capabilities, is well equipped to address various technical problems associated with gas hydrates and flow assurance, including:

  • Measuring and predicting the hydrate stability zones for various hydrocarbons with and without formation water and/or organic inhibitors
  • Measurement of the amount and composition of various phases in the presence of gas hydrates
  • Determining the hydrate stability zone in porous media
  • Kinetics of hydrate formation and the effect of hydrate promoters
  • Performance of LDHIs
  • Transportability of fluid systems containing gas hydrates (e.g., effectiveness of anti-agglomerants)
  • Wax WAT/WDT measurements and wax-hydrate equilibria
  • Designing drilling fluids for offshore and deepwater operations
  • Best practices for dissociation of gas hydrate plugs
  • Avoiding gas hydrate problems in well clean-up and testing, WAG injection operations, pipeline start-ups and shut-downs
  • Simulating various gas hydrate formation and production scenarios
  • Freezing points/boiling points of aqueous solutions of organic inhibitors and/or electrolytes
  • Solubility and salting out of electrolytes in aqueous solutions of organic inhibitors (e.g., halite deposition)

The Centre has provided technical support in solving gas hydrate problems to a number of major hydrocarbon production and service companies, including Shell, BP, Marathon, Baker-Hughes, E. Wood Ltd, Genesis Oil and Gas, TOTAL, Sasol, Messer UK, Mearsk, OMV, Rhodia, Blackwatch Petroleum Services, Baker Petrolite, CSIRO, Occidental, Chevron, Ondeo, and Castrol.