Experimental Viscosity Data for Binary and Ternary Systems of Arab Heavy Crude Oil and Diluents

Abstract

To meet the global exponential demand for crude oil, development of unconventional crude oil deposits is essential but the major limitation is seen in pipeline transportation, given its exceptionally high viscosity. Saudi Aramco is the world’s leading crude oil producer with a significant contribution of Arab Heavy crude oil in the total production mix. In this paper, we have measured the viscosities of both binary and ternary mixtures of this heavy oil crude for the first time, using toluene and natural gas condensate fluids over temperatures encountered in pipeline transportation. Our study shows that both binary and ternary systems show excellent viscosity reduction characteristics with increase in viscosity index with temperature. The degree of viscosity reduction shows polynomial trends with excellent fits that facilitated the determination of the wax appearance temperature using differential calculus approach. The range of experimental temperature in this study and the excellent viscosity reduction characteristics of the systems testify to the suitability of our experimental data for pipeline transportation planning