Development of Sustainable Oilfield Corrosion Inhibitors

Abstract Corrosion inhibitors are widely used in oil and gas fields to maintain asset integrity of downhole tubing, pipelines, and vessels. Because these corrosion inhibitors are often manufactured from nonsustainable feedstocks, including chemicals manufactured from crude oil, they can have a high carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint. However, the oil and gas industry is committed to becoming more sustainable and reducing its CO2 emissions. Therefore, it has become necessary to develop oilfield corrosion inhibitors that are manufactured from sustainable feedstocks. To address this need, corrosion inhibitors synthesized from a sustainable feedstock were prepared. The chemicals were produced from sustainable sugar beet waste feedstock, and their efficacy in mitigating sweet (CO2) corrosion was evaluated in the laboratory. In corrosion kettle tests and high-pressure autoclave tests, the sugar beet-derived chemicals met the performance criteria, reducing the corrosion rate to <0.1 mm/y. This work has demonstrated the feasibility of using sustainably sourced corrosion inhibitors to mitigate sweet corrosion, which is commonly encountered in oil and gas production.