Blockage of transport pipelines due to hydrate formation is becoming a major concern for many gas and oil companies. Gas hydrates are solid crystalline compounds with small molecules entrapped in cavities inside the cages formed by water molecules. These species are stable at low temperatures and high pressures. When deep-sea fields are being explored, the problem of blockage formation becomes severe due to very low temperatures encountered and leads to shutdown of an entire operation. We study this problem by observing the system characteristics at lab scale. Hydrate formation around a water droplet, which is surrounded by an oil containing hydrate forming guest molecules is observed. Cyclopentane, which has almost negligible solubility in water, is mostly used as hydrate former phase because it is possible to get cyclopentane hydrates at reasonable temperatures at atmospheric pressure. The development of a hydrate film at water-oil interface is observed under static conditions and with the droplet exposed to a flow field imposed by controlled stirring. Preliminary experiments with gas pressure are also done. The effect of shear on hydrate film development and the mass transfer of hydrating forming species to the water drop surface will be discussed.

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