Sebastiano Correra

Thermodynamic Modelling for Prediction of Asphaltene Deposition in Live Oils

The in situ formation of asphaltene deposits can very seriously damage the reservoir formation, leading to a decline in the oil productivity. One of the goals of this study was the development of a reliable, predictive model for asphaltene destabilization in order to assist the petroleum engineer in optimizing the production strategy. Original phase equilibria data on asphaltenic mixtures show that the principal modellistic approaches described in the literature do not accurately reproduce asphaltene phase behavior. A new, more reliable modellistic approach is proposed in this paper, and a procedure for predicting the stability of asphaltene solutions is outlined. Application of the new model to two oils gives satisfactory results when compared with field observations.