Study on Demulsification Technology of Heavy Oil Blended in Xinjiang Oilfield

Abstract

HYW (Hong Yi Wu line) heavy oil emulsion in Xinjiang Oilfield (Karamay, China) is a kind of heavy oil with high viscosity and high emulsification. Its viscosity reaches 120,000 mPa·s at 40 °C. The emulsion has no demulsification. Even if the demulsification temperature reaches 90 degrees, the concentration of demulsifier reaches 260 mg/L. In this paper, a new process of thermochemical demulsification of heavy oil after blending is studied. First, SE low-viscosity oil with viscosity of 640 mPa·s and water cut of 90% was selected as blended oil. Study the viscosity of SE line and HYW line at different temperatures after fully blended. The results show that the heavy oil blended model conforms to Bingham model. When the temperature is 40 °C and the content of SE line is 30%, the viscosity is less than 10,000 mPa·s. With the increase of temperature, the viscosity continues to decline. When the temperature exceeds 80 °C, the viscosity is less than 1000 mPa·s. The final design SE line content is 30%, the demulsification temperature is 70 °C, and the demulsifier concentration is 160 mg/L as the best demulsification parameter. The field results show that the demulsification rate of heavy oil in this process reaches more than 90%. This experiment lays a foundation for demulsification of high emulsified crude oil developed by heavy oil in Xinjiang oilfield.