The increasing pressure on the fossil fuels resources has led to the Brazilian government and many enterprises from all over the world to invest a lot of money for new offshore exploration. The deposition of paraffinic waxes present in Brazilian crude oils is an important problem in the flow assurance field for this country. These compounds can precipitate when temperature decreases during the crude oil's life cycle. The accumulation of these solids on the walls can cause problems in pipelines and equipment and even stop production. Such problem is well-known within the petroleum industry and a big research effort is being made to develop procedures to anticipate potential wax deposition problems. The modeling of the wax precipitation process requires a good knowledge of the liquid-solid equilibrium involved, a detailed characterization of the raw crude oil and the knowledge of the nature of the compounds present in the solid-like phase. However this information is not always available and the application of such models is limited.
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