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Development of a New Simulation Tool to Study the Asphaltene Precipitation and Deposition in Oil Well Column Based on Particle Scaling

Naseri Boroujeni, Saman | 2019

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 51732 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Jamshidi, Saied; Taghikhani, Vahid
  7. Abstract:
  8. Formation, precipitation and deposition of heavy organic compounds of petroleum fluids including, but not limited to, asphaltene in oil reservoirs and production systems have been by far the most important and challenging flow assurance problems. Therefore, preventative actions to control organic deposits in oil formations and production systems which can lead inevitably to reduction or cessation in production, have always been a main challenge for oil producers.In this thesis, a one dimensional simulator have been developed to study asphaltene precipitation, aggregation and deposition in an oil well column at isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. While the previously proposed PC-SAFT equation of state is used to model the asphaltene precipitation, new kinetic models have been introduced to account for the aggregation and deposition of asphaltene particles during the oil production over time. Also, the effect of aggregate size on the rate of aggregation and deposition have been studied. The interrelations between the of rate of asphaltene deposition and concentration of asphaltene nano-aggregates in an oil well column also have been studied.To address concerns raised by some E&P companies on the performance of asphaltene inhibitors and the fact that the inhibitors could aggravate the asphaltene problems during production, attempts have been made to study the effects of aggregate size on the amount of asphaltene deposition in well column. It is believed that the asphaltene aggregates with smaller size tend to deposit on the surface due to the increase in the molecular diffusion coefficient of asphaltene aggregates while the larger ones tend to remain suspended in the bulk of production flow. This fact, have been studied by scaling the asphaltene particles in the new model which will be used in this study.The results obtained from the new asphaltene simulator, proposed in this thesis, for the rate and amount of asphaltene deposition have been compared with the experimental data reported in the literature in a capillary system
  9. Keywords:
  10. Asphaltene Deposition ; Perturbed Chain From of the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT)State Equation ; Two Phase Flow ; Simulator Development

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