ABSTRACT
Asphaltene deposition during oil production is a major flow assurance problem. Asphaltene deposit layer reduces the pipe cross-section, leading to a significant reduction in flow rate and eventually plugging the pipeline. Hence, it is required to predict the possibility of asphaltene deposition for the given operating conditions and quantify the amount of asphaltene deposited. In this chapter, several models developed over the years to predict asphaltene deposition in wellbore and porous media are presented. The development of the asphaltene deposition tool (ADEPT) that can predict the occurrence and calculate the magnitude and profile of asphaltene deposited in wellbore is discussed. Application of lattice Boltzamann method (LBM) to predict and simulate asphaltene deposition in porous media based on microchannel experiments is also described. Modeling of asphaltene transport properties such as density, viscosity, and diffusion coefficient of asphaltenes is examined because they are the important parameters of the asphaltene-deposition models.
