Compositional Simulation of Asphaltene Deposition and Plugging

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes the incorporation of an asphaltene deposition and plugging model in an Equation-of-State (EOS) compositional simulator. The precipitated asphaltene is represented as a pure solid. It is shown that this representation provides an efficient and satisfactory method for modelling the phase behavior of asphaltene, in both gas injection and pressure depletion processes. The precipitated asphaltene can deposit onto the rock surface through an adsorption process, or flow as a suspended solid in the oil phase. Compositional simulation of a typical gas injection core displacement and of a radial single-well primary depletion show that important phenomena and observations reported in the literature were reproduced adequately. P. 129