Joint Facilities Group & Flow Assurance Technical Section Technical Evening – Wax Measurements and Modelling Uncertainties

Wax Measurements and Modelling Uncertainties

by  Dr Bazlee Matzain, Principal Consultant, Flow Assurance, Wood

The potential for wax deposition is traditionally assessed by integrating wax measurement with production system modelling.  Most of the current state-of-the-art laboratory methods and the widely accepted modelling techniques have been successfully used to assess the likelihood and severity of wax deposition in production systems. However, there are still some key uncertainties resulting in undesirable outcomes. This talk will outline the known unknowns and the available techniques that can be used to resolve these uncertainties in. The aim of this talk is to evaluate what is still needed to resolve these uncertainties.

About Dr Bazlee Matzain: A specialist in flow assurance engineering with more than 25 years of oil-gas industry experience. He has been involved in numerous complex flow assurance issues/trouble-shooting, field operations, and optimization studies. His work experience includes being a researcher for PETRONAS, a lead flow assurance engineer for a large engineering company and a consulting manager for a software engineering company. He was the lead researcher that developed the “MATZAIN” wax deposition model currently used in OLGA. He holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toledo and MSc and PhD in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer with Engineers Australia.