The term Flow Assurance appears to have come into existence in the 1990s when the push was being made by industry into harsher environments such as Deepwater. It was a realization that industry would need to be able to guarantee flow over longer distances, 24/7 with high reliability, in a high stakes environment where intervention to rectify issues & blockages would be costly. Risk avoidance as a result was the default flow assurance strategy. We are about 20 years in with the field of flow assurance. Today, Deepwater and harsher environments are still a part of the portfolio of assets but there is pressure to make those assets thrive in a prolonged lower oil price environment and compete for investment capital. What have we learnt practicing flow assurance in the last 20 years that can help navigate the next 20 years? What have we done well; what could we do better? What technologies can we consider field proven that can enable/enhance assets in the next 20? Can a Flow Assurance engineer do more with less in this environment? This talk by a mid career Flow Assurance engineer will attempt to address some of these questions.
