Sharif Digital Repository

The process of asphaltene precipitation has a substantial effect on oil flow during primary oil production and enhanced oil recovery processes in the petroleum industry. In this work, a modified scaling model based on the PVT properties of bottom hole live oil including resin to asphaltene ratio, onset pressure, bubble point pressure, reservoir temperature, asphaltene content of bottom hole live oil and gas to oil ratio has been proposed to account for asphaltene precipitation under pressure depletion/gas injection conditions and the proposed model was verified using experimental data obtained in this work and also with those reported in the literature. In the proposed scaling model the... 

Oil displacement and recovery efficiency during gas injection depends on the competition between driving forces and capillary resistance that is governed by gas-oil interfacial behavior. Detailed study of the interfacial forces during gas injection is the main objective of this research work. The effects of injecting gas composition and the possibility of asphaltene precipitation in a wide pressure range were determined through comprehensive experimental study. This was performed by measurement of interfacial tension of a highly asphaltenic Iranian crude oil in three surrounding gas mediums. The results showed that as pressure increases, the rate to reach miscibility reduces in the vicinity... 

The authors studied deposition and entrainment of asphaltene particles as major mechanisms that occur in porous media. Deposition mechanisms that contribute to permeability reduction and entrainment of deposited particle improve the damaged permeability value. While in most previous works the effects of entrainment mechanism are considered negligible, in this study miscible CO2 injection tests were conducted by core flood apparatus to investigate the effect of asphaltene deposition on permeability and porosity alterations. Results indicated that proposed model for entrainment mechanism is affected by deposition mechanism. The asphaltene deposition core's characteristics have undeniable roles... 

Although the capability of using sulfate anion as a wettability modiffier is well established, no systematic investigation on the effect of sulfate ions and natural surfactants in the crude oil including asphaltene and resin on the interfacial tension (IFT) of acidic crude oil (ACO)/sulfate were performed. In this regards, the fluid/fluid interactions are tested through the IFT measurements for ACO, asphaltene and resin extracted from ACO in the presence of sulfate salts including Na2SO4, MgSO4 and CaSO4 while the concentration of each salt ranges between 0 and 45000 ppm. The obtained results demonstrate that the capability of asphaltene molecules is higher for IFT reduction compared with... 

An algorithm has been developed to investigate the effect of asphaltene precipitation on calculation of minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), which is one of the key design parameters of any gas injection projects. In fact, this algorithm is the extension of procedure suggested by Jaubert et al. for prediction of MMP whatever the displacement mechanism. The vapor-liquid equilibrium calculation and then liquid-liquid equilibrium calculation are required to be taken account to estimate the amount of asphaltene precipitation. The association equation of state (AEOS) has been applied to determine the phase behavior of asphaltene. The algorithm has been used for the MMP prediction of Weyburn... 

Onsite partial upgrading is a promising strategy for facilitating pipeline transportation of bitumen without the use of diluent. In the present work, a one-step treatment using an autoclave is optimized toward upgrading Alberta bitumen of 9.6 API gravity and 925,000 cP viscosity. The thermal cracking process was kept simple in order to maintain an economic and environmental advantage. Optimum conditions entailed 75 min of reaction time at 420 °C, without quenching the reactor. These conditions corresponded to highest centrifuged oil product yield of 73.3 ± 1.1 wt%, viscosity of 34 ± 2 cP and API gravity of 18.9 ± 0.5. H-NMR, CHNS and FTIR measurements revealed thermally cracked asphaltenes... 

Thermodynamic modeling is known as a promising tool for phase behavior modeling of asphaltene precipitation under different conditions such as pressure depletion and CO2 injection. In this work, a thermodynamic approach is used for modeling the phase behavior of asphaltene precipitation. The precipitated asphaltene phase is represented by an improved solid model, while the oil and gas phases are modeled with an equation of state. The PR-EOS was used to perform flash calculations. Then, the onset point and the amount of precipitated asphaltene were predicted. A computer code based on an improved solid model has been developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data for one of... 

In this work, the rheological changes of several crude oil samples exposed to ultrasonic waves for different time intervals in addition to the effect of temperature on viscosity behavior of heavy crude oils were investigated using a series of steady shear flow and oscillatory tests. The colloidal structural evolutions of flocs in oil samples were illustrated by analysis of the size distribution of flocculated asphaltene particles (confocal microscopy tests). The rheological investigations indicate that the ultrasonic irradiation dissolved heavy components in crude oil. After ultrasonic treatment, the Kouh-e-Mond crude oil was found to be pseudoplastic. In addition, confocal microscopy... 

Experimental Investigation of the Asphaltene Deposition Process during Different Production Schemes - This paper presents the results of asphaltene precipitation and deposition during lean gas injection, CO2 injection and natural depletion in reservoir conditions. In addition, the effect of variations in operating pressure, injection gas concentration and production rate on asphaltene precipitation and deposition were investigated. The severity of asphaltene deposition was found to be more pronounced in lean gas injection in comparison with CO2 injection and natural depletion. Increasing the flow rate in natural depletion xperiments showed a considerable increase in asphaltene deposition,... 

The thorough knowledge of the asphaltene aggregation phenomena and pressure/temperature related kinetics is helpful for accurate prediction/control of the asphaltene issues in all facets of petroleum production/processing. However, characterizing the asphaltene aggregation phenomena in live oils at high pressure-high temperature conditions is not well discussed in the available literature. In this work, the asphaltene aggregation phenomena as well as the kinetics of aggregation at different levels of pressure and temperature are investigated in light and heavy live oils using high pressure microscope. The results are presented and discussed in terms of asphaltene onset pressure, aggregates... 

Asphaltene precipitation is known to be responsible for serious challenges in oil industry such as wellbore damage, oil flow reduction, and plugging of transportation lines. The traditional methods to remove asphaltene deposition are mostly based on chemical solvent. One of the recent proposed green and cost–effect remedial methods is the application of microorganisms capable of consuming the heavy hydrocarbon chains. The cell surface hydrophobicity among others effectively manipulates the efficiency of the microorganism for asphaltene degradation. Besides, surface active agents would affect the microorganism adhesion and cell surface properties, and alters its hydrophobicity. Investigating... 

Asphaltene precipitation is known to be responsible for serious challenges in oil industry such as wellbore damage, oil flow reduction, and plugging of transportation lines. The traditional methods to remove asphaltene deposition are mostly based on chemical solvent. One of the recent proposed green and cost–effect remedial methods is the application of microorganisms capable of consuming the heavy hydrocarbon chains. The cell surface hydrophobicity among others effectively manipulates the efficiency of the microorganism for asphaltene degradation. Besides, surface active agents would affect the microorganism adhesion and cell surface properties, and alters its hydrophobicity. Investigating... 

This research aims to propose a thermodynamic model for predicting asphaltene precipitation upon diluting a crude oil with a paraffinic solvent. To this end, a thorough mathematical formulation was carried out to derive a novel micellization model based on the associative properties of asphaltenic compounds. It was assumed that asphaltenes exist in the oil both as monomeric molecules and aggregated cores; with stabilization latter by attachment of resin on its periphery. The aggregation equilibrium was established by taking into account asphaltene's lyophobic tendency, heat of resin adsorption, and interfacial tension between micelle and oil media which is the main driving factor... 

This research aims to present asphaltene fraction of oil by FTIR spectrum technique. For this purpose, three different oil samples with various SARA contents and almost identical API degrees were utilized in this research. Two asphaltenic oil samples were referred to as ‘A’ and ‘B’, and the aliphatic oil sample was named as ‘C’. First of all, the asphaltene fraction was extracted through the IP-143 test. The possible chemical bonds and functional groups were identified through NMR tests. Then, the FTIR spectrums of the oil samples and the extracted corresponding asphaltene fractions were taken. The interpretations were used to find the functional groups in the FTIR of the oil samples that... 

Recently, ultrasonic wave technology has received much attention as a method for removal of asphaltene deposits from the near wellbore region. However, very little is known about another feature of this technology on the kinetics of asphaltene molecules aggregation. In this work, the kinetics of asphaltene flocculation in several crude oil samples exposed to ultrasonic waves for different time intervals is studied by confocal microscopy. The colloidal structural evolutions of flocks are described by analysis of size distribution of flocculated asphaltene particles. The results show that for the first 90 min of flocculation time, the size of aggregates increases rapidly, and a... 

Asphaltene deposition is a problematic challenge for oil production. Changes in key parameters like pressure and fluid composition during natural depletion and different gas injection scenarios may result in asphaltene precipitation and deposition. In this work, a model is developed by application of mass balance equations, momentum equation, asphaltene deposition and permeability reduction models. An algorithm is developed to perform iterative procedure to solve the numerical equations that contains highly coupled variables. Indeed, an equation is introduced to calculate the saturation of the precipitated asphaltene phase. Model parameters were determined by genetic algorithm which is a... 

As expounded, the precipitation and deposition of asphaltene particles in pipelines has been proved to be the most challenging flow assurance problem due to its unknown and complex behaviors. In this work, a new multicomponent, multiphase and dynamic tool was developed to model the aggregation and deposition of asphaltene particles in a bulk medium. The multiphase and dynamic asphaltene deposition tool, shortened as MAD-ADEPT is, in fact, a modified version of the previously developed ADEPT. The new tool was developed to make the asphaltene deposition and aggregation concepts in oil production wells more predictable. To tackle the complexity of the asphaltene problem, a bespoke algorithm was...