News from Peace Heaven, the professional DRA (Drag-Reducing Agents) supplier

Addition of small amounts of polymers to a fluid undergoing fully developed turbulent channel or pipe flow can yield significant increase in the mass flow for a given pressure gradient. This phenomenon is referred to as polymer induced turbulent drag reduction (DR). DR has been successfully used for crude-oil transport and has potential application for surface-water and under-water transports. The DR project is supported by DARPA and is in collaboration with faculties in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department. The ultimate goal is to develop new and feasible technologies for fast ocean transport by reducing power requirement. A phase modulated flow birefringence method is being used to quantify polymer chain orientation and deformation in a drag reducing turbulent channel flow. Chain orientations are measured at different heights of the channel to study the contribution of different layers for reducing the drag.

One of the complexities encountered during polymer induced drag reduction is degradation or scission of polymer chains which hamper their effectiveness as a drag reducing agent. The second project is aimed at studying conditions and mechanisms for flow induced polymer chain scission. Chain scission or polymer degradation (as it is commonly referred to) is an important aspect of many technological applications such as polymer drag reduction, melt processing and recently sequencing strategies for DNA.

We are experimentally investigating polymer chain scission in turbulent and extensional flows. Our scission studies in turbulent flows have enabled us to identify a new upper limit for polymer drag reduction that is determined by chain scission rather than the maximum drag reduction asymptote. We are now focusing on studying chain scission in purely extensional flows. The figures below show two cross-slot devices that will be used to study chain scission in inertial and viscous (creeping flow limit ) planar elongational flows. The results from these studies would be used to validate scission theories.

Houston Business Journal
A tiny Brookshire company that makes specialized chemical products for the oilfield is locked in a legal battle with giant ConocoPhillips Inc. over patent rights.
Gerald Eaton, president and founder of Energy & Environmental International, says his company has been nearly driven out of business by the "crippling costs" of Houston-based Conoco's patent infringement lawsuit, filed in September 2001.
In January, EEI counter-sued ConocoPhillips and Conoco Specialty Products Inc. in federal court in Houston, charging Conoco with anti-competitive practices and misuse of the judicial process for the purpose of driving EEI out of the pipeline flow improvement business.
ConocoPhillips, according to EEI's lawsuit, already controls 95 percent of the worldwide market for drag reducing agents — chemicals that are introduced into hydrocarbon pipelines to improve the flow of oil and refined products.
The current litigation arose out of a lawsuit that Conoco lost.
In 1999, a small Virginia-based company, General Technology Applications, sued Conoco for infringing on flow improvement patents which GTA had licensed EEI to use. In May 2000, a jury in Virginia found Conoco liable for willfully infringing the GTA patents, and Conoco was ordered to pay GTA $55 million in damages. (Conoco Inc. merged with Phillips Petroleum Co. in 2002 and is now known as ConocoPhillips).
Conoco said in 2000 that it was convinced its technology — patented after GTA's — did not infringe on GTA and that the jury misconstrued certain legal and technical issues to reach an "erroneous" verdict.
"Our position is we don't infringe on their patents — period," Conoco spokesman Carlton Adams said at the time.
The Houston Business Journal obtained a copy of a letter that Conoco sent to customers in May 2000 saying the company would "vigorously appeal" the verdict and reporting that it also had "begun the process of pursuing others who may be manufacturing or marketing a flow improver product" involving technology covered by Conoco's patents. Conoco said in the letter it intended to file suit against such other companies.
Conoco lost its appeal in the GTA case in September 2001 when a federal appeals court in Virginia affirmed the jury verdict. But Conoco nevertheless immediately filed suit against both GTA and EEI in federal court in Houston for alleged patent infringement.
Conoco soon settled with GTA — but not with EEI. "We developed our own intellectual properties over 10 years of effort, and we were very cautious in the whole thing," says EEI's Eaton, who was a vice president with Atlantic-Richfield, or ARCO, in the early-1980s when that company began developing the new drag reduction technology.
ARCO's technology eventually ended up belonging to Baker Petrolite, a division of Baker Hughes, which is also a competitor in the flow improvement market.
EEI was issued a patent in February 1999 and another in January 2000 for two different processes related to drag reduction. The second patent covered two co-catalysts that EEI says are "unlike any co-catalyst ever used to form drag reducing agents."
Eaton says the litigation has "devastated" EEI's business, causing it to lose customers and business opportunities.
"When you're a big company and you're being sued, it's no problem," he says. "But if you're small, customers shy away from you."
Conoco officials could not be reached for comment regarding this latest round of litigation with EEI.
Meanwhile, Eaton says the financial burden of the litigation is crippling EEI, while ConocoPhillips is a company with $60 billion in annual revenue and $35 billion in market capitalization.
Last month, Conoco won a motion to collect attorneys' fees and penalties from EEI because EEI had been unable to comply with the time restrictions of certain legal demands made by Conoco.
"We only have five people, and 80 percent of the market for what we make is outside the U.S.," says Eaton. "We had to be in Southeast Asia. We were just trying to do our work."
mperin@bizjournals.com 713-960-591

Drag Reducer Agent (DRA) is a special polymer that injected into a pipeline trasporting fluids (crude, refined products, non-potable water, …) so reducing the frictional losses in the pipeline. The concentration injected is very small (in fact, in ppm levels!)
Drag reducer research started in early 1970’s. In late 1970’s first application of DRA in Alaska held by Conoco.
Drag Reduction Mechanism
DRA interacts with turbulent flow in the region near the pipeline wall and reduce the turbulence. As such, frictional pressure losses are reduced. For the consequence, DRA will only work effectively in a turbulent flow.
Applications of Drag Reduction Agent
1. Increase amount of fluids flowing in the pipeline
2. Reduce pipeline operating pressure
3. Energy and operation cost savings
4. Refinery debottlenecking
5. Shorten demurrage time

Corrosion control methods in pipelines have been generally divided between two choices: the use of chemical inhibitors for corrosion protection of the pipe internal surface or the use of corrosion resistant alloys under corrosive conditions. A new approach has come forward for a cost-effective transport of oil and gas: drag reduction. With the use of Drag-Reducing Agents (chemicals, which increase fluid flow and reduce pressure loss), friction decreases in the turbulent flow.
Slug flow represents the most erosive-corrosive conditions encountered in multiphase pipelines. By using Drag Reducing Agent (DRA), the flow regime can be modified and the slug frequency can be reduced, resulting in less corrosive conditions. In a flow loop system, the effect of DRA on the flow regime and corrosion rates can be investigated.