The
tendency of asphaltene, the heaviest and most polarizable component
of crude oil, to deposit and block wellbores and pipelines can potentially
lead to production loss and significant cost of remediation. Asphaltenes
constitute a particular interest in oil production because of the
lack of understanding of their molecular structure and the mechanisms
by which they precipitate and deposit. Because prevention is far less
expensive than removal, a better understanding of asphaltene precipitation
and deposition phenomena is of great importance for the oil industry.
Precipitation, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for
deposition, requires accurate modeling of asphaltene phase behavior
with respect to variations in the temperature, pressure, and composition.
Over the past decade, cubic-plus-association (CPA) and perturbed-chain
statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) equations of state
(EOSs) have been proposed for modeling complex systems, such as asphaltenic
crude oils. In this work, a comparison between CPA and PC-SAFT EOSs
is presented to illustrate their potential and limitations on the
prediction of asphaltene phase behavior and pressure–volume–temperature
(PVT) properties of crude oils over a range of pressures and temperatures.
With an optimized characterization, both EOSs are able to give acceptable
predictions of the phase behavior and asphaltene precipitation tendency.
However, PC-SAFT is superior in the prediction of derivative thermodynamic
properties, especially at high pressures.
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