Abstract:
Asphaltene precipitation is a serious problem during oil recovery processes. Many
models have been developed to predict the precipitation. This paper summarizes these
precipitation models and implements the model of Nghiem et al. in The University
of Texas Compositional simulator to predict the effects of asphaltene precipitation on
fluid flow through porous media. An algorithm is proposed to efficiently couple the
precipitation calculation with the fluid-flow computation. A rock-fabric model is
introduced to relate the asphaltene precipitation to the changes of permeability and
relative permeability. Reservoir simulation results show that consideration of the
asphaltene precipitation leads to a different prediction of oil recovery.
Reference:
X. Qin, P. Wang, K. Sepehrnoori, G.A. Pope, "Modeling Asphaltene Precipitation in
Reservoir Simulation," Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 39,
2644-2654, 2000.
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Last updated: April 25, 2002