Effect of flow velocity on pipeline steel corrosion behaviour in H2S/CO2 environment with sulphur deposition

The effect of element sulphur on the performance of corrosion inhibitor in H2S/CO2 gas field solution was investigated at different velocities. The morphology and composition of corrosion products were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) methods. The results indicated that L360 QS steel surface suffered from sulphur-induced pitting corrosion at a low velocity due to insufficient sulphur-carrying fluid power. At high flow velocities, the steel surface is likely to be suffered high fluid power which can remove the inhibitor film and corrosion scales by the mechanical erosion effect. The sulphur corrosion mechanism model and the flow-induced corrosion model due to the high wall shear force have been proposed in the study. This work suggested that the gas production rate should be controlled at an acceptable level to guarantee the service safety of pipeline system.