Effect of Pressure and Temperature on Asphaltene precipitation

Asphaltene precipitation is one of the most important issues in crude oil production. As a result, to prevent the consequences of Asphaltene deposit, it is important to know when and where Asphaltene precipitation rises1 (Hemanta, 2001). These phenomena are caused by changes in pressure, temperature in the primary production2 (Hirscberg et al., 1984). Two most common causes of Asphaltene precipitation is the change in pressure and mixing reservoir oil with injected fluids that is injected to enhance production by maintaining reservoir pressure in the reservoir condition and change in temperature in production line andwellbore and even in production facilities. In the current study the effect of pressure and temperature change onAsphaltene precipitation was simulated in CMG Winprop 2007.11 to investigate the potential effect of temperature and pressure on quantity of Asphaltene precipitation. Change in pressure occurs in reservoir, wellbore, pipeline and production facilities and temperature change could occur in wellbore, separators, andpipeline (Fig.1). Deposing wax and Asphaltene precipitation can block wellbore, pipeline or even production facilities3,4 (G.A.Mansoori, 2009) which in return may cause a decrease in the amount of production or even stop the production procedure completely. In the present research a real crude oil was modeled by CMG Winprop 2007.11. The data used in this simulation are average of composition from two different wells