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Glycol Injection

A special form of inhibition consists of the injection of concentrated glycol in flowlines carrying
wet natural gas without formation water production. The glycol acts in two ways:

1. As a drying agent, lowering the water dew point of the gas and the condensation rate of
pure water.

2. As a corrosion inhibitor.

The inhibitive action is a function of the water content of the glycol: when it is diluted with too
much water, the corrosion reduction disappears. The effect of glycol is also treated as a
multiplier to the corrosion rate:

where A is a constant =1.6, which weakly depends on the type of glycol, and Water% is the
water content of the glycol/water mixture. The concentration of the glycol is recalculated at
every point in the line from the water vapour pressure in equilibrium with the concentration of

the glycol. At high temperatures of (for example, above 50 C), the gas carries too much water,
which dilutes the glycol excessively. For the same reason the technique is only practical when
most of the liquid water has been knocked out from the gas before entering the line.

There are several types of glycol which can be used, the most common one being diethylene
glycol (DEG). ECE assumes that any glycol which is injected is DEG of 95% purity. At equal
concentrations, the inhibitive action of the various types of glycol (MEG, DEG, TEG) is quite
similar. Hence other glycol types can be treated as equivalent to DEG for the purpose of
corrosion modelling. Top-of-the-line corrosion is also suppressed in (at least) the same
proportion by the injection of glycol.
Reference:

C.de Waard, U.Lotz and D.E. Milliams, Predictive Model for CO Corrosion Engineering in Wet Natural Gas
2
Pipelines. NACE Corrosion 1991 Paper 577.

R. Nyborg, A. Dugstad and L. Lunde, NACE Corrosion 1993, Paper 77.

Related Topics
CO2 Corrosion Rate Model

Model Predictions

Acetic Acid

Risk of Failure

Erosion-Corrosion

Top-of-Line Corrosion

Flow Patterns

Corrosion Inhibition

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Glycol Injection Page 2 of 2

Condensation of Water

Influence of Crude Oil

pH and Water Chemistry

Effect of H2S

Influence of Carbonate Scales

For Support contact the ECE Development Team - Email: ece@intetech.com - Telephone: +44 (0) 1244
336386

Wood Group Intetech Ltd 2015

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