Sharif Digital Repository

This work concerns with experimental and modeling investigation of the asphaltene damage removal using ultrasonic wave irradiation. A specific core holder apparatus was designed and utilized for in situ ultrasonic exposure to damaged core plug at different conditions of exposure time, ultrasound power and distances between sound source and plug. Injection of many pore volumes of an asphaltenic crude oil was used for creating asphaltene induced damaged in porous media through permeability measurements. The deposited asphaltene during oil injection as well as asphaltene removal due to ultrasonic exposure was evaluated using IP-143 analysis. The results revealed that ultrasound application... 

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... 

In this thesis, by focusing on the hydraulics of three phase flow in vertical tubing to investigate asphaltene deposition problem, the solid particles behaviors in a turbulent flow is fully studied. Reasonable size distribution for particles (based on previous works and researches) was assumed and a model for 2 sections of a Marrat oil field well to evaluate their asphaltene deposition problem was developed. Three phase liquid-gas-solid flow in the well tubing was simulated. Asphaltene deposition profile on the well tubing, mean and maximum of the deposition rate and particle concentrations in the flow regime were calculated and compared with real field data. Better agreement with field data... 

Given the decreasing trend of light petroleum reserves and the necessity to produce heavy and extra-heavy oil resources, the challenge of dealing with existing asphaltene related problems, which is the heaviest and the most complex component of crude oil, has become increasingly tangible. Asphaltene precipitates and deposits due to pressure, temperature or composition alterations which leads to obstruction of porous media and production facilities. Set the costly methods aside, one of the available approaches to prevent asphaltene precipitation, is to apply an electric field upon the suspected zone, which is cheap and uncomplicated. Besides, utilizing nano-particles while applying electric... 

Efforts to identify, predict, and resolve problems linked to asphaltenes and flow assurance have resulted in the development of numerous laboratory and modelling techniques. However, there has been little research on the molecular structure of asphaltenes and how it relates to solubility, stability, aggregation, and deposition behavior. Not only was a thorough structural analysis of asphaltene extracted from three samples of light, medium, and heavy oil performed in this study, but medium oil asphaltene was also fractionated into three sub-fractions based on solubility, with minimum, medium, and maximum solubility, and each subfraction was subjected to a structural analysis. All asphaltene... 

Asphaltene deposition, the heaviest and most polar component of crude oil, which causes great economic damage inside the reservoir, near wells, pipelines and well equipment, is an important challenge in the production of oil reservoirs. The main purpose of this study is to prob the adsorption kinetics and the mechanism of asphaltene adsorption on the metal surface by a quartz crystal microbalance device under different conditions of temperature, flow rate and degree of asphaltene instability. In this study, indirect uv-vis spectroscopic method was used to determine the onset of asphaltene precipitation, then experiments were designed using Taguchi method. A new QCM device has been designed... 

Asphaltene deposition, considered as the heaviest and the most polarizable fraction of crude oil, can cause severe problems in oil production and extraction systems. Oil production companies annually bear huge reduction or even cessation in production and, in turn, costs due to asphaltene precipitation and deposition in wellbore or production tubings. To gain more and better insight into asphaltene formation in production systems, the conceptual investigation on the mechanisms of asphaltene adsorption and deposition on a solid surface is indispensable. In this study Asphaltene's particle adsorption and deposition onto the metal surface under the effect of flow is investigated by experimental... 

Additional to Temperature, Pressure and Compositional changes of crude oils, Electro-kinetics and Electrical potential effects are also known as the most influencing parameters on Asphaltene deposition during oil production and processing.Mechanisms of electro-kinetics and asphaltene charge generation are very complex and unclear. In the previous studies on asphaltene precipitation and deposition, mostly electro-kinetics effects are ignored.While, recent studies show the great effects of electrical filed on asphaltene deposition during production and processing phase of crude oils.At reservoir porous medium and crude flow line, an electrical field can be developed along the length of the... 

Asphaltene, the heaviest and most polarizable fraction of crude oil, has a potential to precipitate, deposit and plug pipelines, causing considerable production costs. The main objective of this study is to contribute to the thermodynamic and transport modeling of asphaltene in order to predict its precipitation, segregation and deposition. Potential calculation of some thermophysical properties of asphaltene is also explored. Predicting the flow assurance issues caused by asphaltene requires the ability to model the phase behavior of asphaltene as a function of pressure, temperature and composition. It has been previously demonstrated that the Perturbed Chain form of Statistical Association... 

In this work, a new model based on the multilayer adsorption kinetic mechanism and four material balance equations for oil, asphaltene, gas and water phase has been developed to account asphaltene deposition in porous media under dynamic condition and the model was verified using experimental data obtained in this work and also with those reported in the literature. The results showed that the developed model can correlate more accurately the oil flooding experimental data in comparison to the previous models based on the mechanical plugging mechanism, in particular in carbonate core samples. Also, a series of experiments was carried to determine the permeability reduction of carbonate,... 

In the upstream asphaltene flow assurance community, both academics and industries are actively involved to predict the asphaltene deposit profile in wellbores and pipelines. The main objective of this study is to contribute to the thermodynamic and transport modeling of asphaltene in order to predict its precipitation, aggregation and deposition. For a better knowledge of the flow properties of asphaltene containing crude oils, it is necessary to understand how asphaltene affect the rheological properties. In this work, the information on such rheological properties of oil-asphaltene slurry systems is provided. The results of rheological experiments for two Iranian crude oils show that the... 

Crude oil production could cause the thermodynamic equilibrium of the crude oil to be disturbed in the well column which results in asphaltene precipitation and deposition. The thickness of the deposited material grows over time until it completely blocks the well column.Due to the hard and insoluble nature of deposited asphaltene, the two main chemical and mechanical methods are found to be more effective. It should be noted that the actual organic sediments in the piping are not pure and consist of three components: asphaltene, resin and paraffin. Therefore, it is very important to know the composition of the deposited material before selecting the appropriate chemical solvent.The samples... 

Asphaltene, known as the heaviest and the most polar component of the crude oil, can precipitate because of the changes in the fluid condition such as pressure, temperature and composition. Asphaltene deposition causes major problems during oil production, in the form of fluid viscosity changes, wellbore damage and fouling in pipelines. The remediation of these problems is very expensive and needs to halt down the crude oil production. The use of electric field has been proposed recently as clean and cheap technique that could also be applied during the production period. In this work, the effect of electric potential on asphaltene precipitation in both static and dynamic modes has been...