Characterization Of Nigerian Crude Oil Wax

ABSTRACT

Flow assurance is the efficient and successful flow of fluids in pipes. Some of the flow assurance challenges that can be encountered include hydrate formation, which is prevalent offshore, sand deposition, wax precipitation, scale deposits, or emulsion problems. In onshore production facilities in the Niger delta, wax deposition is the major challenge to efficient fluid flow. Consequently, it has been the focus of research to proffer effective predictive control measures to a problem that has been tackled with curative methods like regular pigging, heat treatment and solvent use for decades. This research investigated paraffinic wax deposition using laboratory tests, field simulation with PipeSim, and a mathematical model; ideal solution model with various correlations for melting point temperatures and heat of fusion from Won, Chung and Coutinho‟s research works. The laboratory test gave agave a result of 3.73%, 4.77% and 3.45%wax content while simulation gave results of 3.71%, 4.78% and 3.49% for samples A, B and C respectively producing a good match with a difference of less than +0.05 between the two methods. The ideal solid model gave results of 0.9953, 0.9740, and 0.8424 for Won, Chung and Coultinho‟s correlations respectively for solid moles calculated at zero degrees celcius. Finally, this research recommends the use of PipeSim software to evaluate and predict wax deposition especially in the absence of laboratory data as well as regular pigging and solvent injection to ensure that wax build up is avoided in facilities handling waxy crudes.