Crude oils mixtures: compatibility and kinetics of water-in-oil emulsions separation

Abstract

Some oil fields produce from different reservoirs, which may be incompatible generating precipitates. These precipitates are often asphaltenes, which can be an emulsion stabilizing agent negatively affecting the oil treatment processes. In this work, the influence of oil incompatibility on the stabilization of water-in-oil emulsions was studied. Emulsions were evaluated from three different oils (A, B and C) and their mixtures (AB, AC, BC and ABC). The results showed that there is a relationship between separation kinetics of emulsions and asphaltene precipitation. The separation kinetics of the emulsions was faster for more compatible oils. We observed that oil A, which was the less stable regarding asphaltenes, and the ABC mixture, which was the most incompatible mixture, both presented the slowest kinetics of emulsion separation. On the other hand, mixture BC which had the highest compatibility among the other mixtures presented a faster kinetic of emulsion separation.