USING SODIUM STEARATE AS DRAG REDUCING AGENT IN PIPELINES

This research study aims to prove the effectiveness of using Sodium Stearate as Drag
Reducing Agent in pipelines. Whilst it is more common to see in Oil and Gas industry
to utilize polymer as Drag Reducing Agent, surfactants also show a promising future as
Drag Reducing Agent nowadays. When it comes to pipeline, drag had caused severe to
production capacity of a line. Drag had caused power pumping loses; decreasing in
production capacity and indirectly may caused erosion corrosion to take place. The
industries are desperate to find Drag Reducing Agents and still searching for the
cheapest yet most effective alternative Drag Reducing Agent. With that in mind, this
Final Year Project will be focused more on how the surfactant generally, and
specifically Sodium Stearate act as Drag Reducing Agent in pipeline. An experiment
setup will be fabricate and conduct to determine the effect of Sodium Stearate use as
Drag Reducing Agent in oil pipeline. Unfortunately, due to several circumstances and
limitation, the original plan which is to run the experiment using crude oil can not been
conducted. Instead of using crude oil, water is been used to replace it. An open loop
system are fabricated where water in the storage tank will be pump throughout 4 meter
long of testing section of 1 inch diameter Galvanize Iron steel pipeline. An injection
mechanism is created to inject the Drag Reducing Agent solutions at the starting point
of 4 meter testing section. A total of 7 different concentration of Drag Reducing Agent
had been prepared. At the end of testing section, pressure gauge is been placed to
monitor the pressure drop and hence examine the percentage drag reduction for each
concentration been test. Result from experiment shown that Sodium Stearate prove to
have great effect when act as Drag Reducing Agent significantly by recorded highest
percentage drag reduction of 33.33% at concentration of 800ppm for low RPM of
pump. 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. Impact
of this study can be analysis and to make early hypothesis if the fluid inside pipeline is
change from water to crude oil.