This paper briefly summarizes that during the depressurization operation in subsea pipeline for maintenance or prevention of hydrate formation, because the flare knock-out drum pump is designed for ambient temperature, and cannot deal with the low temperature fluid in the depressurization process. Therefore, the low temperature fluid needs to be heated in the knock-out drum to meet the temperature requirement of pump. In order to avoid the volume of low temperature fluid exceeding the surge volume of the flare knock-out drum, the concept of multi stage depressurization is innovatively proposed in this paper, which meets both the requirements of pump temperature and the surge volume of flare drum. Taking a gas field project in the South China Sea as an example, the simulation analysis of depressurization temperature and pressure is carried out by using different size of the blowdown valve. It provides a good reference for the similar project in future
