Phase behaviour and Related properties of Mixtures of Solvents and Heavy Oil - Project no 6347 Annual Report

Annual report VISTA 2009

Project title

Project director: Høiland, Harald, CIPR/ Dep. Of Chemistry, UiB

Post-doc/ scholar: Bjorøy, Ørjan

Project duration: 01.11.09 - 31.10.13

Technical contact person in Statoil: Gilje, Eimund

Division head: Last name, First name

Project number: 6347

Object

This project aims at determining the phase behaviour of solvent/heavy oil mixtures, i.e. phase volumes, distribution coefficients as well as density and viscosity of the phases, and to use these data to improve and modify PVT and viscosity modelling tools. As stated, the first object of this project is to experimentally determine the phase behaviour of solvents, i.e. n-alkanes, and the heavy oil provided by Statoil.

Status:

The project started in November 2009, with an intensive literature search which was summoned up in an internal report. Further, available instrumentation suitable for the project, both at CIPR and at the Statoil PVT-laboratory at Sandsli has been evaluated. In particular, using solvent systems known to give two-phase partitions, use of instrumentation for X-ray tomography seems to be advantageous. Based on the available instrumentation, an experimental series involving n-heptane and the heavy oil system mixture at 50°C and 1 atmosphere has been examined at CIPR. From these experiments it seems clear that asphaltene precipitation may be a problem in further work and the isolated precipitate will therefore need to be further examined. Also, based on these initial results it has become evident that when higher temperatures and pressure are needed the instrumentation at the Statoil PVT-laboratory at Sandsli will have to be taken in use. This laboratory and its instrumentation are now being updated for this purpose.

The project started approximately 3.5 months later than originally expected.

Publications:

-