Reducing the Viscosity of Heavy Oils with Naphtha and its Impact on Asphaltene Stability

摘要

Heavy oils have become an important part of the world's energy resources due to the ever-dwindling supply of light crude oil. Refineries and other processing equipment are being upgraded to handle heavy oils on a large scale. The transport of heavy oils from the wellbore to the refinery however, is a costly process because heavy oils have high viscosities. The high viscosity means additional power is required to meet pumping requirements. Traditionally, producers have used large quantities of aromatic solvents as diluents to reduce the viscosity and make the heavy oils more pumpable.However, aromatics such as xylene and toluene are expensive and environmentally unfriendly.Therefore novel ways, with little side effects, are being sought to incresase the pumpability of heavy crude oils.