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In an active unconventional (shale) well, where hydrocarbons and water are being produced at steady rates from a geochemically complex reservoir through production tubing, operations can be humming along smoothly until, quite suddenly, production slows and equipment malfunctions. The culprit? Quite often, it’s scale---a buildup of minerals on the inside of pipelines. Researchers with the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), with offices in both Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA, are leading efforts to reduce mineral scaling in hydraulic fracturing operations.
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