Pipeline Transportation of Heavy/Viscous Crude Oil as Water Continuous Emulsion in

Abstract

The heavy oil belt of North Cambay Basin comprising of Santhal, Lanwa and Balol oil fields poses great problems in floatation of these heavy oils due to high viscosity (10,000–16,000 cps) of the emulsion. Oil-in-water emulsions provide a cost effective alternative to the heated pipelines or diluents for their transportation. Emulsions in different phase ratios and application doses of 2000–5000 ppm of non-ionic surfactants have been found to be effective in phase reversal of emulsions with drastic reduction in viscosities which are in 100–400 cps range at pipeline operating conditions. Non-ionic surfactants have the advantage of relative insensitivity to the salt content of the aqeous phase. The non-ionic family of surfactants has been used successfully for the formation of stable emulsions that resist inversion to a wide operating temperature range. Resulting reverse emulsions are heat sensitive and resolve themselves at elevated temperatures without addition of dehydration chemicals. Suggested surfactant treatment has the potential to successfully transport heavy/viscous emulsions of Lanwa oilfield resulting in tremendous savings in transportation costs. P. 301

An Enhanced-Solvent Deasphalting Process: Effect of Inclusion of SiO2Nanoparticles in the Quality of Deasphalted Oil

“…Technologies for viscosity reduction and/or upgrading of HO and EHO have been classified as in situ [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] and on-site [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] which are mainly focused on subsurface and surface processes, respectively. In situ upgrading techniques such as in situ combustion (ISC) [26][27][28], thermal cracking, and its catalytic variations [33][34][35][36][37], as well as all technologies assisted by nanocatalysts [29][30][31][32], are technologies that operate at high temperatures and require considerable amounts of fuel and/or steam/gases, thereby limiting their utilization [53][54][55].…”

Application of Nonionic Tenside Homologues in IOR/EOR and Oilfield Chemistry: Fundamental and Engineering Aspects

“…Pipeline transportation of extremely high viscosity, heavy oils is often solved by forced emulsification. Zakin 43 , Elgibaly 44 and Sharma 45 recommended such methods which are based on emulgeation of crude oils having 1000-100000 mPa s viscosity and generation of a water external emulsion stabilized by nonionic tensides. Using this technique the heavy oils could be transported to the refineries from the field without technological problems and the same way as the bulk light or medium oils.…”