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Why fish don't freeze
By questioning why deep-sea fish did not freeze, Shell scientists came up with a solution to keep oil and gas moving along pipelines in very low temperatures at the bottom of the ocean. The answer was a protein that fish produced and which our scientists were then able to make a synthetic copy of.
Photo by Paul Harrison, Shell Senior Explorationist Australia
In our deep-water projects, thousands of feet below sea level, temperatures are near freezing. Combined with the high pressure which is also present at these depths, oil congeals and ice-like hydrates form. And both these effects can block pipes. Companies solve this problem in a number of ways, and adding chemicals to prevent freezing is one traditionally used across the industry. But Shell’s approach, using a new chemical based on fish protein, is proving to work better and more cheaply.
Injected into the oil and gas as it is extracted, the synthetic fish protein additive can be used in far lower doses than other chemicals and have already saved millions of dollars in our projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
