DRAG REDUCING AGENT FOR WATER INJECTION USING SURFACTANT (SODIUM STEARATE)

This final year project aims to study and prove about the capability of Sodium Stearate as Drag Reducing Agent (DRA) in pipelines. In oil and gas industry, surfactant is already well-known as DRA in water injection system especially for well which has a low to intermediate water drive. When it comes to fluid flow in pipelines, the first thing first which engineers would definitely concern about is friction between the fluid and pipes’ wall and also friction between molecules of the fluid itself. These frictions basically integrated with the pressure drop occur along the pipeline. Theoretically speaking, higher friction will be resulting higher pressure drop and simultaneously causes deliverability of fluid inside the pipe will be lower. With that in mind, this research will investigate more on how surfactant generally and specifically Sodium Stearate act as Drag Reducing Agent in water flowing pipeline. In this research, investigating on drag reduction percentage and comparing with the commercial DRA are essential and yet chemically prospect of DRA investigation is been ignored due some limitations. For the experiment setup, an open loop system is fabricated and 2 pressure gauges are been installed; obtained pressure drop along the pipeline. Before proceed with fabrication process, the suitable entrance length need to be determined as entrance length would determine the suitable location of first pressure needs to be installed and the pressure gauge has to be located at fully developed turbulent flow. A total of 8 different concentrations of Drag Reducing Agent had been prepared. Result from experiment shown that Sodium Stearate proves to have great effect when act as Drag Reducing Agent significantly by recorded highest percentage drag reduction of 25.0% at 700ppm where as for commercial DRA, it can be reached up to 30% at the same concentration of DRA. Therefore, it is concluded that Sodium Stearate, which is surfactant has show the ability to act as Drag Reducing Agent effectively in water-pipeline experiment and it can be used as commercial DRA in oil and gas industry if there is continuous research and development on Sodium Stearate as Drag Reducing Agent (DRA).