Flow Assurance Study for Waxy Crude Oils

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• 作者：Marcia Cristina Khalil de Oliveira ; Adriana Teixeira ; Lenise Couto Vieira ; Rog茅rio Mesquita de Carvalho ; Alexandre Barbosa Melo de Carvalho ; Bruno Charles do Couto
• 刊名：Energy & Fuels
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：May 17, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：26
• 期：5
• 页码：2688-2695
• 全文大小：972K
• 年卷期：v.26,no.5(May 17, 2012)
• ISSN：1520-5029

文摘

In subsea environments, wax-phase separation, deposition, and gelling constitute an important concern in production operation/activities. Understanding the crude oil wax-phase behavior can help to avoid the high costs resulting from production reduction or stoppage in the field operations to mitigate these effects. Conversely, expenses arising from production system overdesign may also be prevented. In this context, two waxy crude oils from different Brazilian fields were selected to be characterized according to Petrobras technical specification for flow assurance requirements. These light crude oils A and B have similar chemical characteristics of saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes (SARA) analysis, but crude oil A has a wax appearance temperature 15 掳C higher than crude oil B. Despite having a density around 29掳 American Petroleum Institute (API), for a rheological point of view, crude oil B has a viscosity about half that of crude oil A at 20 掳C. In addition, crude oil B dehydrated exhibits Newtonian behavior, in the range evaluated for the shear rate and temperature, while crude oil A features a shear thinning behavior, which increases with the increase of the water content and temperature reduction.