The control of asphaltene precipitation in oil wells

Asphaltene instability can occur in petroleum reservoirs leading to permeability reduction and deposition in transportation pipes restricting fluid flow. In this work, effect of reservoir pressure on amount of asphaltene precipitation was investigated. Two different asphaltene inhibitors (a new developed and an industrial) were used for preventing asphaltene deposition under static and dynamic conditions. Viscosity measurements of the oil, core flooding experiments and transmittance measurement were conducted to understand asphaltene precipitation and deposition behavior as well inhibitor efficiencies. Optimum concentration of the new asphaltene inhibitor was 200 ppm. Experiments show inhabitation efficiency of new inhibitor can reach up to 90% and showed better performance when compared with industrial one. In addition, squeeze lifetime of new inhibitor was 1.86 times longer than the industrial inhibitor in carbonate core samples. In the presence of new inhibitor formation damage and percent of transmittance was lower than in the presence of industrial asphaltene inhibitor.     

Experimental and modeling study of asphaltene adsorption onto the reservoir rocks

Abstract

In this work, amount of asphaltene adsorption onto the carbonate and sandstone rock samples was investigated at various initial concentrations of asphaltene in oil. Asphaltene adsorption onto both types of the reservoir rocks was increased by increasing the initial concentration of asphaltene. The amount of asphaltene adsorption onto the rock samples was predicted using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The results showed that Langmuir model had a better accuracy for prediction of asphaltene adsorption onto the rock samples than Freundlich model. Furthermore, asphaltene adsorption onto the reservoir rocks was studied in the presence of a recently developed asphaltene inhibitor. The inhibitor significantly reduced asphaltene adsorption at any initial concatenation of asphaltene. Moreover, changes in the rock permeability due to asphaltene precipitation were determined in the presence and absence of the asphaltene inhibitor.     

Experimental study on asphaltene precipitation induced by CO2 flooding

The effects of CO2 pressure,temperature and concentration on asphaltene precipitation induced by CO2 were studied using a high-pressure vessel,interfacial tensiometer,Fourier transform infrared （FTIR） and drill core displacement experimental apparatus.The results indicated that the content of asphaltene in crude oil decreased,and the interfacial tension between a model oil and distilled water increased,with an increase of CO2 pressure,decrease of temperature and increase of molar ratio of CO2 to crude oil when CO2 contacted crude oil in the high pressure vessel.The content of asphaltene in sweepout oil and the permeability of test cores both also decreased with an increase of CO2 flooding pressure.The main reason for changes in content of asphaltene in crude oil,in interfacial tension between model oil and distilled water and in the permeability of the test core is the precipitation of asphaltene which is an interfacially active substance in crude oil.Precipitation of asphaltene also blocks pores in the drill core which decreases the permeability.     

Monitoring of asphaltene precipitation: Experimental and modeling study

Preparing relatively complete collections of experimental data on asphaltene precipitation in different reservoir conditions leads to considerable improvement in this area of science. In this work, asphaltene precipitation was studied upon two Iranian live oil samples, one a heavy oil and another light oil, under primary depletion as well as gas injections. Pressure depletion experiments were carried out at different temperatures to observe temperature effect besides pressure changes on asphaltene phase behavior. CO₂, dry and enriched gases were used as injecting agents to investigate the effect of different gases on asphaltene precipitation. Surprisingly, it was observed that raising temperature decreases the amount of precipitation in case of heavy oil while acting in favor of precipitation for light oil sample. In addition, Enriched gas resulted in more precipitation compared to dry one while CO₂ acted as hindering agent for light oil samples but increased the amount of precipitation in case of heavy oil. In the next part of this work, polydisperse thermodynamic model was developed by introducing an asphaltene molecular weight distribution function based on fractal aggregation. Modification that was introduced into polydisperse model not only solved the instability problem of Kawanaka model but also eliminates the need for resin concentration calculation. Flory–Huggins and Modified Flory–Huggins thermodynamic solubility models were applied to compare their predictions with proposed model.     

Phase behavior modeling of asphaltene precipitation utilizing RBF-ANN approach

Precipitation of heavy hydrocarbons, particularly asphaltenes, is the reason for numerous operational and production problems in the petroleum industry. Hence, knowing the amount of asphaltene precipitation is a critical commission for petroleum engineers to overcome its problems. The aim of this study was to predict the amount of asphaltene precipitation as a function of temperature, dilution ratio, and molecular weight of different n-alkanes utilizing radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF-ANN). Additionally, this model has been compared with previous correlations, and its great accuracy was proved to predict the precipitated asphaltene. The values of R-squared and mean squared error obtained were 0.998 and 0.007, respectively. The efforts confirmed brilliant forecasting skill of RBF-ANN for the approximation of the precipitated asphaltene as a function of temperature, dilution ratio, and molecular weight of different n-alkanes.     

Mechanism of the reversibility of asphaltene precipitation in crude oil

Asphaltene precipitation and deposition occur in petroleum reservoirs as a change in pressure, temperature and liquid phase composition and reduce the oil recovery considerably. In addition to these, asphaltene precipitates may deposit in the pore spaces of reservoir rock and form plugging, which is referred to as a type of formation damage, i.e. permeability reduction. In all cases above, it is of great importance to know under which conditions the asphaltenes precipitate and to what extent precipitated asphaltenes can be re-dissolved. In other words, to what extent the process of asphaltene precipitation is reversible with respect to change in thermodynamic conditions. In present work, a series of experiments was designed and carried out to quantitatively distinguish the reversibility of asphaltene precipitation upon the change in pressure, temperature and liquid composition. Experiments were conducted in non-porous media. Generally it was observed that the asphaltene precipitation is a partial reversible process for oil under study upon temperature change with hysteresis. However, the precipitation of asphaltene as a function of mixture composition and pressure is nearly reversible with a little hysteresis.     

Experimental investigation of dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid and toluene dispersants on asphaltene precipitation of dead and live oil

Asphaltene is the heaviest fraction of oil, and if the thermodynamic conditions of oil change, it can be separated from oil precipitate. Of common methods for preventing asphaltene precipitation, using predictive methods, biological methods and injection of dispersants can be mentioned. In this study, the effect of two dispersants of toluene and dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid on asphaltene precipitation of a dead and a live oil sample has been investigated. According to the results, these dispersants in dead oil create an optimum point for asphaltene precipitation. In live oil, these dispersants reduce asphaltene precipitation down to 70%. In addition, it was observed that as an effect of injecting these dispersants, the average sizes of asphaltene flocculation have reduced.     

Prediction of asphaltene precipitation in crude oil

Asphaltene are problematic substances for heavy-oil upgrading processes. Deposition of complex and heavy organic compounds, which exist in petroleum crude oil, can cause a lot of problems. In this work an Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) approach for estimation of asphaltene precipitation has been proposed. Among this training the back-propagation learning algorithm with different training methods were used. The most suitable algorithm with appropriate number of neurons in the hidden layer which provides the minimum error is found to be the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm. ANN's results showed the best estimation performance for the prediction of the asphaltene precipitation. The required data were collected and after pre-treating was used for training of ANN. The performance of the best obtained network was checked by its generalization ability in predicting 1/3 of the unseen data. Excellent predictions with maximum Mean Square Error (MSE) of 0.2787 were observed. The results show ANN capability to predict the measured data. ANN model performance is also compared with the Flory–Huggins and the modified Flory–Huggins thermo dynamical models. The comparison confirms the superiority of the ANN model.     

Asphaltene precipitation and inhibition in carbonate reservoirs

In this work, the effect of formation water concentration in the emulsion with oil on the amount of asphaltene precipitation was studied. In addition, the effect of flow rate and asphaltene concentration on formation damage of Iranian carbonate core samples was investigated. A new asphaltene inhibitor was used for preventing asphaltene precipitation. Performance of the inhibitor was studied under static and dynamic conditions. The inhibition efficiency reached 77% at a concentration of 3% of asphaltene inhibitor. Also, adsorption rate of the inhibitor was determined at different inhibitor concentrations. The results showed that the adsorption rate is increased by increasing the inhibitor concentration. However, the adsorption rate remained almost unchanged at higher concentrations.     

原油沥青质初始沉淀压力测定与模型化计算

温度、压力及组成的改变均会造成原油中沥青质产生沉淀,导致储层伤害和井筒堵塞。文中通过自主研制的固相沉淀激光探测系统,用透光率法首次测定了伊朗南阿油田原油样品在不同温度下的沥青质初始沉淀压力;同时利用Nghiem等建立的沥青质沉淀预测的热力学模型对油样沥青质初始沉淀压力进行计算,并与实验结果拟合。结果表明：利用透光率法测定该油田油样,在44,80,123℃下的沥青质初始沉淀压力点分别为42.8,39.7,35.2 MPa;沥青质初始沉淀压力随着温度的升高,在井筒温度范围内呈线性关系。模型计算与实验结果误差不超过15%,所以利用Nghiem模型对原油沥青质的初始沉淀压力进行预测是可靠的。     

New aspects of the asphaltene precipitation via interfacial tension measurement

In present study, the asphaltene precipitation was examined through pendant drop method regarding the impacts of oil composition, solvent type and concentration in both atmospheric and elevated pressures. Consequently, it is observed that there is a specific region for solvent concentration, in which the surface activity of nC₅ is more than nC₇ leading to the lower oil-water interfacial tension of nC₅ diluted oil than that of nC₇ diluted solutions. By decreasing resin to asphaltene ratio, this region will shift to the lower solvent concentrations. This finding could be of crucial value for analyzing the asphaltene precipitation in petroleum systems.     

Estimating phase behavior of the asphaltene precipitation by GA-ANFIS approach

Abstract

This study implements an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approach to predict the precipitation amount of the asphaltene using temperature (T), dilution ratio (R_v), and molecular weight of different n-alkanes. Results are then evaluated using graphical and statistical error analysis methods, confirming the model’s great ability for appropriate prediction of the precipitation amount. Mean squared error and determination coefficient (R²) values of 0.036 and 0.995, respectively are obtained for the proposed ANFIS model. Results are then compared to those from previously reported correlations revealing the better performance of the proposed model.     

塔河油田X区块奥陶系沥青质油井防堵技术研究

塔河油田X片区奥陶系区块油井陆续出现沥青质堵物堵塞油管、生产管线,造成油井停产,对生产造成了严重影响。针对此类问题,对塔河油田X片区奥陶系原油中沥青质的沉积问题进行了综合研究,得到了有效的油井沥青质防堵生产技术。通过对塔河油田X区块奥陶系原油组分、沥青质沉积堵塞物的分析,发现沥青质沉积主要是由于原油组分中饱和烃含量高,胶质沥青质之比过低,由此发展了沥青分散剂解堵、排出段塞堵物、井口流程优化等治堵工艺。通过试验发现,这些工艺较好地解决了沥青质沉积堵塞油井及管线的问题。     

Data-driven modeling for determination of asphaltene stability condition in oil system

Asphaltene precipitation is accounted as one of the most serious problems during oil production so that it can decrease the production of crude oil and cause the blockage of reservoir rock pores, etc. An accurate prediction of phase behaviour of asphaltene is therefore important in oil production industry. Accurate prediction of phase behaviour of asphaltene precipitation i.e. stability state of asphaltene precipitation in oilfields is greatly desirable. To this end, the applicability domains of the most important variables for the determination of the stability state of asphaltene precipitation viz. aromatic + resin and asphaltene + saturates have been specified by using decision tree (DT) algorithm. Next, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approach was implemented in order to determine the stability state of asphaltene precipitation using the efficient variables of aromatic + resin and asphaltene + saturates. The results obtained in the current study demonstrate that the models proposed in this study provide desirable results in estmating the stability state of asphaltene precipitation in oilfields.     

Inhibition of asphaltene flocculation in light crude oil: effect of pressure,temperature and inhibitor concentration

Abstract

In this study, a light crude oil sample was taken from Hassi Messaoud field to characterize its physicochemical properties. The asphaltene flocculation onset was determined in the dead oil by Flocculation Titrimeter equipment. The petroleum resins have been extracted from the same crude oil and tested as an inhibitor of asphaltene flocculation then their efficiency has been studied at different conditions of pressure and temperature. The results point out that the extracted resins may have two different effects on the onset point depending upon the operator conditions and the concentration of the added resins to crude oil.     

油井中胶质沥青质沉积结垢的防治

对配制的不同配方的解堵剂,通过各种性能评价,包括腐蚀实验和破乳剂的配伍性实验,得到该解堵剂的性能较好,对油井管柱、设备均不会造成腐蚀伤害,并且不会影响原油的后续处理加工。不同配方的解堵剂不仅对塔河油田油井中沥青质堵塞物的产生有较好的抑制作用,而且对已经产生的堵塞物有较好的溶解效果,对效果好的解堵剂进行复配后发现解堵效果有明显改善;另外该解堵剂对原油还有一定的降粘作用,有利于原油的开采输送。     

Experimental and modeling asphaltene precipitation in presence of DBSA using PC-SAFT EOS

Asphaltene precipitation and subsequent deposition in production tubing and topside facilities present significant cost penalties to crude oil production. Therefore, it is highly desirable to predict their phase behavior and the efficiency of dispersants in preventing or delaying deposition. Very few studies have been carried out on the molecular interactions between asphaltenes and different dispersants. As a result, the mechanisms by which dispersants stabilize asphaltenes are still open to discussion. The authors introduced a new method to characterize asphaltenes in perturbed chain statistical association fluid theory equation of state (EOS; perturbed-chain statistical association fluid theory EOS [PC-SAFT-EOS]) and correctly model the effect of dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid (DBSA) dispersant on the thermodynamic behavior of asphaltenes. Using the filtration method the effect of the ionic dispersant (DBSA) on asphaltene precipitation for different concentrations of n-heptane was measured experimentally, then modeled through PC-SAFT EOS. In the approach only the hard-chain and the dispersion terms are taken into consideration, and PC-SAFT parameters were calculated based on Gonzales et al. (2007 Gonzalez, D. L., Hirasaki, G. J., Creek, J., and Chapman, W. G. (2007). Modeling of asphaltene precipitation due to changes in composition using the perturbed chain statistical associating fluid theory equation of state. Energy Fuels 21:1231–1242.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) based on molecular weight (Mw) and aromaticity factor (γ). Additionally, the model could correctly predict the amount of asphaltene precipitation upon addition of DBSA dispersant.     

Parametric analysis of the effect of operation parameters on asphaltene deposition: An experimental study

Changing pressure, temperature, and composition cause instability in crude oil and create a problematic issue which is called asphaltene deposition. Asphaltene deposition causes problems in wettability alteration and flow assurance in different parts of petroleum industry so asphaltene deposition becomes a challenging issue in petroleum engineering. Hence, it is necessary to predict asphaltene deposition and investigate parameters which effect on asphaltene deposition. In this contribution, because of similarity between pore throat of reservoir rock and capillary tube, to investigate parameters such as asphaltene content, precipitant ratio, flow rate, and temperature effect on asphaltene deposition, a capillary setup was constructed and a model was developed to relate pressure drop along capillary tube to permeability reduction.