I've studied power engineering and have worked in the energy sector for almost twenty years, dealing mainly with oil and gas. I work in incredibly cold climates and have never heard of natural gas freezing in the pipes because the pipelines are below the frost line, contain only minute quantities of water and are in constant flow. Last week, it hit -54°F before windchill where I am. What's going on in Texas is a set-up.
Is there a weak point in the flow of NG though? I'll admit, I'm asking mostly out of ignorance...with the extent of my experience in the field revolving around machining products for these industries, not actually applying the products. I get that under the frost level, there shouldn't be any problems, but is there a point in the flow where an integral machine could be affected by the unusual cold?
Even in production work, the atmospheric temperature doesn't factor much into flow rates downstream of separators. A far bigger concern is the formation of hydrates forming when shifting from a high-pressure low-volume containment to the opposite. Commercial sales lines have already had produced water separated from it and mercaptan added. Aside from small risers for servicing, these lines are all buried below frost lines. Even in Alaska, where natural gas lines are elevated for hundreds of miles, gas lines do not freeze, despite not having heat tracing.
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