IKM Ocean Team saved the customer both time and money by chemically cleaning its cooler directly on the oil and gas platform. The alternative would be a “Back to Back” solution, which could take up to several weeks.

On an oil and gas production platform in the North Sea, a problem with cooler performance was observed. The flow was down to 15%. This can be a sign that the system is contaminated with undesirable fouling deposits.

It can be quite a task to keep the pipes free of undesirable harmful substances such as rust, calcification and other organic/inorganic materials. Fouling deposits of such substances have a negative effect on the production system, because they reduce flow, increase the pressure drop, decrease heat transfer and, at worst, cause blockage, corrosion, or leaks.

After chemical cleaning

The customer was facing a problem which needed to be solved as quickly as possible in order to normalise production again. The cooler needed to be cleaned in order to achieve an acceptable cooling effect again.

Previous Procedure:
“Back to Back” solution. Time: up to several weeks.
Previously, the normal procedure for cleaning coolers was a laborious dismantling as well as a “Back to Basic” solution.

One by one, the coolers were taken out of operation, dismantled and a cleaned cooler was installed, shipped out to the production platform. The defective cooler was then shipped back to land for mechanical cleaning.

This was repeated until desired coolers were cleaned. Such dismantling of the heavy coolers was a very time consuming and often dangerous process.

Before chemical cleaning

IKM Ocean Team’s Solution:
Chemical cleaning. Time: Two working days per cooler.
IKM Ocean Team could, however, offer a significantly better and faster solution. Using chemistry, it was possible to carry out cleaning in only two working days per cooler. The fast cleaning resulted in the production platform being able to normalise their production significantly faster and thus minimise the loss of production.

In addition to the faster cleaning time, the advantage of the chemical cleaning method was also that the cooler did not need to be dismantled, which is also safer, and there was no need for shipping to and from land for mechanical cleaning. The coolers were now taken out of operation in turns and cleaned on site.

After the chemical cleaning, the client saw that the flow of the cooler increased from 15% to 85%, which one can say is a significant improvement on the cooler, which again produces optimal cooling for the oil and gas extraction process.