ABSTRACT
Measurements ................................................................................... 167 9.3.3 Effect of Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes on Asphaltene
Behavior and Composition ............................................................... 170 9.3.4 Analysis of Deposits ......................................................................... 172
9.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 174 Acknowledgment ................................................................................................... 175 References .............................................................................................................. 175
• Asphaltenes are considered “bad actors” when crude oils and their fractions are produced, transported, or refined
• Loss production by asphaltene plugging could yield significant financial effects for upstream operations
In the last few years, we have developed three new analytical techniques for asphaltene characterization: determination of asphaltene content by on-column filtration, asphaltene solubility profile, and separation of asphaltenes in solubility fractions. The results showed that the on-column filtration can be effectively and rapidly used for determining asphaltene content of crude oil samples. Similarly, the asphaltene solubility profile method can be effectively utilized to measure the stability of extra heavy oil, crude oil/naphtha blends, and crude oil during CO2 flooding, to screen additives to improve asphaltene solubility, and to determine the enrichment of low solubility asphaltenes found in solid deposits. Similarly, the asphaltene solubility fraction method is useful to monitor changes in asphaltene distribution during steam injection processes. These examples show the potential of these techniques to provide useful information about changes in asphaltene behavior during production operations and for the selection and design of treatments and recovery processes.
