Salt Build Up in Manifold

[daviwy]

We are having salt build up in the manifold coming from some of our wells causing pressure build up in the wells.

What we do to get rid of the salt is water washing the manifold. My question is, does anyone know of any method of preventing the build up in the first place?

Secondly, we noticed some of the wells have had pressure drops without us doing anything to them which seem abnormal. Does anyone know of any explanation for this?

PS: if my question sound vague, I'd explain further.

Offshore Mechanical Shift Engineer (Trainee)
Oil, Gas & Power

 

[DrillerNic]

I'm not a production chemist, but you might be able to inject an inhibitor, either downhole using a chemical injection line or into the manifold? Otherwise fresh water washes are what is commonly done.

As for the pressure drops, are these pressure drops form downhole changes (ie possibly a formation damage effect from salt scale crud near the wellbore) or due to increased pressure drops up the tubing (scale, wax, salt, crud in tubing) inflow/ outflow effects (change in reservoir pressure, change in produced fluid due to large scale reservoir changes or due to coning) or incresed pressure drops between the wellhead and the manifold? Nodal analysis might help find an answer?

 

[daviwy]

Hmm good points, We've removed inhibitors from all our wells.
Nodal analysis is new to me. Thanks for the post.

Offshore Mechanical Shift Engineer (Trainee)
Oil, Gas & Power