Introduction

Abstract

Offshore exploration and production of natural gas has increased all over the globe due to the high offer of this energy resource in ocean basins. Along with this quest a lot of challenges have emerged. Particularly, a major concern is related to flow assurance, i.e., to ensure successful natural gas flow in pipelines and processing facilities and guarantee continuous production without flow restriction. In this sense, gas hydrate formation is considered as the most critical aspect in flow assurance strategies, particularly in deepwater offshore fields. Gas hydrate plugs can signify tremendous safety and economic impacts on gas flowline operation and can stop production completely for several days or months, and even result in pipeline loss in the worst case. Further, the removal and remediation of plugs of gas hydrate, once they are formed, can be a very costly and time-consuming process, which emphasizes the importance of preventive measures like the inhibition of hydrate formation. Hence, this chapter presents the main topics of this book by making a quick overview about hydrates, hydrate inhibitors, MEG injection, closed MEG loop system, MEG recovery processes, and exergy contextualization.