Patent ID: 7530398

Claim:
A system for maintaining production flow in a subsea pipeline having a proximate and a distal end, the pipeline being in fluid communication with a host on a distal end, the system comprising: a pig handler, having an inlet system in fluid communication with at least one subsea well adapted to receive a hydrocarbon production flow, and an outlet system in fluid communication with the proximate end of the pipeline; a subsea heat exchanger, the heat exchanger having an inlet in fluid communication with the pig handler inlet system and an outlet in fluid communication with the pig handler outlet system, adapted so that the temperature of the hydrocarbon production flow may be reduced sufficiently to cause solids to form; a pig launching system, adapted so that a pig may be selectively placed into the hydrocarbon production flow through the pig handler inlet system, launching the pig into the heat exchanger to remove deposited solids from the heat exchanger; and a pig receiving system, adapted so that a pig may be removed from the hydrocarbon production flow through the pig handler outlet system prior to production flow entry into the subsea pipeline; wherein the heat exchanger is a forced coolant pipe-in-pipe system, having inner and outer pipes, adapted so that production flows through the inner pipe and coolant flows through the annulus formed between the inner and outer pipes in a direction counter to the production flow direction.