Thermodynamic modeling of asphaltene precipitation in a heavy live oil using PC-SAFT EoS

Asphaltene precipitation and deposition have always been a major concern in the oil industry. In this study, asphaltene precipitation in a heavy live oil with high asphaltene content (10.5 wt% in stock tank oil) is modeled using PC-SAFT EoS. Since asphaltene content of the oil is high, despite previous researches both model’s parameters (aromaticity of aromatics + resins and aromaticity of asphaltene) were tuned simultaneously. The model shows good agreement with experimental data and the absolute average deviation is 22.81%.

Keywords:

Asphaltene precipitation , PC-SAFT EoS , Thermodynamic modeling , Characterization , Heavy oil , Aromaticity