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Figures…………………………………………………………………………...vi List of Tables………………………………………………………………………….....x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 1 1.1 Importance of Deepwater Fields.............................................................. 1 1.2 Problem Statement.................................................................................. 4 1.3 Objectives................................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.................................................... 8 2.1 Basic Principles of Emulsions.................................................................. 8 2.2 Emulsions Properties............................................................................. 10 2.2.1 Morphology of Emulsion ................................................................. 10 2.2.2 Phase Inversion .............................................................................. 11 2.2.3 Drop size distribution ...................................................................... 14 2.3 Emulsions Rheology and Shear Viscosity ............................................. 18 2.3.1 Models at constant temperature ..................................................... 19 2.3.2 Models with variation of temperature .............................................. 20 2.4 Emulsion Stability .................................................................................. 22 2.4.1 Sedimentation and Creaming ......................................................... 23 2.4.2 Aggregation .................................................................................... 24 2.4.3 Coalescence ................................................................................... 28 2.5 Demulsification ...................................................................................... 29 2.5.1 Effect of surface-active materials.................................................... 31 2.5.2 Chemical Demulsifier Efficiency...................................................... 32 v CHAPTER 3: CHARACTERIZATION OF EMULSIONS BY NMR...................... 38 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 39 3.2 Fundamentals .................................................................................... 39 3. CPMG Pulsed Sequence ................................................................... 40 3.4 PGSE and PGSTE Pulsed Sequences .............................................. 44 3.5 T1 weighted 1-D Profile Measurement................................................ 50 CHAPTER 4: EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES............................................... 53 4.1 Materials................................................................................................ 53 4.2 NMR Measurements.............................................................................. 54 4.3 Demulsifier Selection............................................................................. 55 4.4 Viscosity Measurements........................................................................ 57 4.5 Accuracy and Reproducibility ................................................................ 60 CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION..................................................... 62 5.1 Interfacial Tension Measurements ........................................................ 62 5.2 Emulsion Characterization by NMR....................................................... 62 5.2.1 T2 Distribution from CPMG Measurements..................................... 64 5.2.2 Drop size distribution from restricted diffusion measurement ......... 69 5.2.3 1-D T1 weighted profile measurement ............................................ 78 5.3 Emulsion Rheology ............................................................................... 86 5.3.1 Effect of temperature and shear rate .............................................. 87 5.3.2 Effect of water cut ........................................................................... 90 5.4 Demulsifier Performance and Selection ................................................ 91 5.4.1 Bottle testing ................................................................................... 92 5.4.2 Viscosity reduction and optimum dosage........................................ 94 5.4.3 Effect of mixing order ...................................................................... 99 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK..................................... 101 6.1 Conclusions......................................................................................... 101 6.2 Suggested Future Work....................................................................... 102 REFERENCES. ................................................................................................ 108
Reducing such a high viscosity requires better understanding of emulsion properties. Separation topsides can also be an issue; emulsions can be very stable depending on the properties of the oil and may not easily break under gravity. Therefore, the use of chemicals that work as demulsifiers is commonly employed. Injecting the chemical subsea, either at the manifold or at the tree, can obtain great benefits as it will reduce pressure drop in pipelines and/or enhance the emulsion separation and handling. Hence, it is important for the industry to find an efficient way of testing and evaluating these chemicals in the lab before applying them in the field. An efficient testing method will lead to an optimization and potential reduction of the quantity of the chemical needed for this purpose, resulting in monetary and most important, environmental benefits. So far, mainly bottle testing has been employed to conduct such measurements. The use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) method will help in characterizing an emulsion and evaluating chemicals’ effectiveness to break/invert it. This study focuses on characterizing of water-in-oil emulsions, that formed in deepwater production, by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and studying their rheological behavior at different operation temperatures with and without demulsifiers present. 6 1.3 Objectives The main objective of the project is to study and characterize emulsion stability for deepwater oil fields and evaluate chemicals’ effectiveness to break/invert such emulsions in order to reduce their viscosity. This study will, specifically, focus on the viscosity of the emulsions created at different temperatures and their tendency to separate with and without the injection of commercial de-emulsifiers. In addition to the bottle testing, the identification of the separation is conducted with the use of NMR technique that can obtain quick information on phase distribution of the emulsion under study. Furthermore, the use of viscosity measurement is also applied to determine the rheological behavior at different operating conditions. Transporting emulsion as water-in oil type, oil continuous, increase the viscosity and, therefore, could have cost impact associated with high pumping requirements. Inverting this type of emulsion into oil-in-water will decrease the viscosity as the continuous phase will change to water and consequently help reducing the cost of pumping. This study could help in identifying whether it is more cost effective for crude oils of moderate viscosity to add a demulsifier to produce coalescence and hence separate/invert emulsion without depending on only conventional bottle testing or sampling. In this thesis, Chapter 2 presents an overview of the theoretical background and summarizes the basic knowledge on emulsions. These include the emulsion properties, stability, rheology and the demulsification mechanisms used to destabilize emulsion. 7 Chapter 3 illustrates the use of low-field nuclear magnetic resonance, NMR, and MRI techniques and how they can be effectively utilized to estimate and characterize the emulsion properties. After that, Chapter 4 is devoted to explain the experimental procedures and the materials used in this work. The procedures of executing the NMR experiment and emulsion preparation method are also described. The results obtained from this work along with detailed discussion are then described in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 highlights the conclusions obtained from this work and proposes some possible future ideas that can be applied in the extension of this work. . 8 CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1. Basic Principles of Emulsions Emulsions can be found in almost every part of the petroleum production and recovery process and can be encountered at many stages during drilling, producing, transporting and processing of crude oil. Emulsion can be defined as a dispersion of a liquid within another liquid. The stability is conferred by the presence of agents at the interfaces that may delay the spontaneous tendency of the liquids to separate. Such agents are most commonly molecules with polar and non-polar chemical groups in their structure usually referred to as surfactants- or finely divided solids. The dispersed phase is commonly present in an emulsion in the form of spherical drops [3]. Phase separation in emulsions is imposed by thermodynamics because as the oil and water form two continuous phases while they separate, the interfacial area and therefore the free energy of the dispersion are reduced. As a consequence, the characteristics of the emulsion (drop size distribution, mean drop size and other properties) cannot remain unchanged in time. Therefore, the stability of an emulsion refers to the ability of the dispersion to preserve its properties within a given timeframe [3]. Most of the petroleum emulsions that will be encountered in practice contain oil, water and emulsifying agents and exist in 9 a metastable state that has high potential barrier to prevent coalescence of the particles. An emulsion can be classified according to different criteria. In the classic type of emulsion, the two immiscible liquids involved are water and oil. As should be clear from the foregoing discussion, either of these two liquids can be defined as the disperse phase. The disperse phase is sometimes referred to as internal phase, and the continuous phase as the external phase. Depending on which one is the disperse phase, emulsions of quite different physical characteristics are usually obtained [4]. The following types of emulsions are now readily distinguished in principle:
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