Scaling and Corrosion in Oil Production-How Do They Relate to Each other?

Amin Rezaee, Ali Mobaraki Nejad, Hamidreza Mansouri

Formation of mineral scales and metallic corrosion are main concerns in flow assurance of oil production wells. Carbonates, sulfates, oxides and hydroxides are compounds observed in oilfield condition. Formation of such solid compounds, due to characteristics of the brine and/or corrosion processes, reduce the effective internal diameter of the production tubing in the well’s column. Presence of acid gases such as CO2 and H2S in aqueous environment of oil wells triggers chemical and electrochemical reactions involved in metallic corrosion.  At the first glance, scaling and corrosion are separate issues, but in fact, they can influence each other.  Corrosion products such as iron carbonate, any forms of iron sulfides and/or iron oxides are directly affected by the magnitude of corrosion rate. On the other hand, formation of scales on the surface of tubulars either decrease or increase the corrosion rate depends on the physiochemical characteristics of the surface layers. This paper briefly reviews such interaction between main mineral scales and corrosion processes in oil well condition based on the available literature data.