Exclusion of Undesirable Water in Oil Emulsion from the Reservoir Fluid

The crude oil production is occasionally encountered the interference of stabilized water in oil emulsion due to the enormous amounts of asphaltenes, resins, naphthenic acids and solid particles in high salt content crude oil. The prevalent chemical method has been utilized to remove the emulsions being in the reservoir fluids, is costly due to continuous consumption of a demulsifier and application specific according to the product specifications, brines and chemical demulsifier types. This study suggests a magnetic demulsificaion method to demulsify the unwelcome water in oil emulsion formed within the reservoir, without any need of magnetic field during the demulsification process. On the basis of our studies, the presence of magnetic particles also can reduce the viscosity of a crude oil at the same time. The results show that the new method is able to demulsify the emulsions by more than ۹۹% of separation efficiency. Some significant parameters of temperature, magnetic dosage, particles size and the capacity of the demulsifiers are evaluated here.

Keywords:

demulsification , water in oil emulsion , reservoir fluid , separation