ChampionX’s Chemical Application Breaks Up Waxy Blockages

Sometimes crude oil is just that—crude. Instead of moving smoothly through pipelines, it gets goopy and gunky, obstructing its own flow.

Paraffin is often the culprit. When too many of these waxy crystals are in the line and start sticking together, the flow slows down.

Operators often use hot oil to dissolve the wax, and they regularly run pigs, pipeline inspection gauges, through the lines to keep them clear. Pigs and heat add costs, not every line is piggable—capable of being cleaned and inspected—and sometimes the maximum safe temperature for the oil isn’t enough to dissolve the wax.

ChampionX’s ParaClear system applies chemistry as a solution.

“This problem-solving technique revolves around a kinematic assessment of the customer system,” said Rachel Hudson, a technical lead and paraffin subject matter expert at ChampionX.

The system considers basics such as the temperatures at which wax appears and the API gravity of the crude, and then “we go much farther than that,” Hudson said. “The goal is to identify the right product and application for the system.”

When an operator in the Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin was struggling with paraffin buildup, ChampionX assessed the situation.

“They had had some treatment strategies on and off,” Hudson said. “They heard that there can be paraffin issues in the area, but these are newer wells. They hadn’t experienced it yet.”

ChampionX brought in solar-powered paraffin trailers to pump chemicals into the lines over 24 hours. The process resolved blockages, improving production by 39% on one rod lift well. Eventually that led to monthly treatments, which reduced the need for well shut-ins and hot oil treatments.

“I outlined a treatment strategy for them and fundamentally it’s worked so well they’ve expanded the program quite a bit,” she said. “They can see the results on the monitoring and they’re not running into the same paraffin issues they saw before.”

It’s possible that ParaClear will have applications beyond the upstream.

“I do see a significant opportunity in the midstream space when we talk about unpiggable station piping,” Hudson said. “Many stations do not have 100% piggable pipeage, and the truck lanes [are] typically not piggable. Pipelines between inlet manifold and tanks and outlet manifold are typically not piggable. You could see a need for something like this to clean deposition at the 6 o’clock position of a pipe, where the under deposit corrosion risk is the greatest.”

For now, it has a growing audience in the upstream.

“We’re working with multiple operators across three different basins within the U.S.,” Hudson said. “And we’re looking at expanding to a fourth basin pretty soon.”