Abstract During the blockage of deep-sea natural gas pipelines, the deposited hydrates on the pipe wall undergo the shedding–redeposition process under varying fluid shear forces, which occurs repeatedly, causing abnormal fluctuations in the pipeline pressure drop curve. However, the characteristics of these fluctuations have long been poorly understood, affecting the assessment of the evolution of the pipeline blockage severity. To address this issue, we develop a conceptual model of hydrate blockage incorporating shedding–redeposition cycles and apply it to numerical simulation of two well-characterized high-pressure flow-loop experiments with pronounced hydrate shedding. Simulation results show that including the redeposition of the shed hydrates significantly increases the frequency of pressure drop fluctuations, reduces the amplitude of individual fluctuations, and ultimately accelerates the pipeline blockage process. Such fluctuation characteristics are consistent with the accelerated pressure drop recovery feature observed after hydrate shedding events in both experiments, which the existing model without hydrate shedding–redeposition cycles failed to capture, and reduce the average relative error of pressure drop prediction to below 15%. Through numerical sensitivity analysis, it is further disclosed that lower inlet temperatures, higher inlet pressures, and higher gas flow rates intensify the hydrate shedding–redeposition cycle, cause high-frequency pressure drop fluctuations, and accordingly increase hydrate plugging risk.