A root cause of many oil industry production and flow problem is paraffin wax especially in cold anddeep offshore fields which are at low temperatures. About 82 - 89% of the hydrocarbon produced in theworld suffers when wax precipitates out and solidifies in the pore spaces and channels of flow, aroundthe wellbore, in the production wells or tubing, perforations, pump strings, and rods, and the whole oiltransport flow-lines systems. The flow capacity of waxy crude can be quantified and evaluated using themeans of pour point measurement. However, the description of this property during the flow of waxy crudeis insufficient because the waxy crude rheological properties depend on the viscosity history. Using gelationtheory, viscosity - temperature data can be analyzed and used to characterize the temperature behavior ofwaxy crude as such crude has the tendency to gel at low temperature. This paper evaluates Nigerian WaxyCrude Oil using biodiesel based material as an additive. Laboratory measurements on rheology were carriedout on the sample at low temperatures condition. The obtained data of shear rate and shear stress plotted. Thedose of biodiesel derived additive in neat waxy crude oil was varied between 0.1 to 0.5 v/v at the operatinglow temperature. The experimental investigations furnish that there is significant decrease in rheologicalproperties with the decrease in pour point and temperature upon the addition of biodiesel derived additivehence, significantly enhance the flow of waxy crude in a flow system.
展开▼