Study on the Pigging Operation of a Subsea Pipeline in East China Sea

In view of the actual production requirements, a submarine pipeline pigging operation is needed in the East China Sea. Through pigging operation, not only the efficiency of transportation can be improved, but also the integrity of pipeline can be checked. Therefore, detailed pigging scheme was made. The pigging criteria and requirements of operating parameters were presented. Also, the OLGA software was used to simulate the pigging process. Then the pigging operation was carried out according to the simulation results. The results showed that progressive pigging was suggested and the operating parameters should be kept stable during the pigging. When the downstream platform received a sudden increase in the liquid, the gas intake of the pipeline should be reduced to 50×10⁴ m³/d. The results of the first to fifth pigging simulation showed that the processing capacity of platform slug collector could not meet the requirement of pigging, and some slug flow was required to enter the downstream pipeline. Pigging operation showed that the numerical simulation results were within acceptable error range.