Rheological behavior of water-in-oil emulsions of heavy and extra-heavy live oils: Experimental evaluation

Abstract

table emulsions were prepared with heavy and extra-heavy live oils by using a set-up recently built at Ecopetrol S. A. -Instituto Colombiano del Petróleo (ICP). This equipment permits to prepare waterin-oil emulsions at reservoir conditions without any change on the overall hydrocarbon composition. The live emulsions were prepared with water contents up to 26% in volume. Then, a capillary viscometer was used to study the rheological behavior of these emulsions at different shear rates and pressures up to 24.2 MPa. The experimental results permit to conclude that the prepared and evaluated emulsions have a Newtonian behavior for the conditions of water contents, shear rates, pressures and temperature (60°C) here studied. For these emulsions, a logarithmic behavior of the viscosity with respect to pressure and water content was also observed.

Temperature Effect on Shear Thinning Behavior of Low-Viscous Oilfield Emulsion

“…It is important to point out that in the present chapter (1) the water cut selected is reflecting the typical water cut levels of down-hole samples from oil reservoir and (2) the recorded shear rate measurements are from 0.1 to 1000 s −1 . As most of emulsion literatures presented the "high shear rate" only within a range of less than 600 s −1[14][15][16][17], we determined that a new finding from the present chapter would contribute to the rheology knowledge of oilfield emulsion.…”

Experimental Study on the Effective Viscosity of Unstable CO2 Flooding Produced Fluid with the Energy Dissipation Method

“…15 However, this simulator can only be used to measure the viscosity at a constant shear rate but cannot cope with the effect of shear intensity. Alboudwarej et al 16 and Sandoval-Rodri ́guez et al 17 explored the rheological properties of the emulsions prepared with heavy live oils using high-pressure capillary viscometers, respectively. The apparent viscosity of the heavy oil emulsion was found by Alboudwarej et al to decrease as the pressure of the dissolved light hydrocarbons increases.…”