A new study at the university of Baghdad addresses the problems of pumping heavy oil through pipelines
At the department of petroleum engineering, college of engineering, public discussion of m.a thesis submitted by the student, Haider Abdul Ameer Faris, entitled “problems of pumping heavy oil through pipelines and processing high viscosity”. The research deals with flow barrier which is viscosity that results in loss of energy during the process of transfer of liquid through pipelines and other channels of transmission, as well as friction with the pipelines walls that leads to more consumption of energy pumping. The aim of the researcher is to understand the role of additives in reducing the viscosity of heavy oil and reducing the efficiency of lessening the barrier when mixing with different solvents. The researcher pointed out that all over the world, the pipelines are used to economic transfer of crude oil and its derivatives, gas and water that results in reducing the high pressure because of the barrier’s friction, so a modern technology was presented to increase the flow within the pipeline (to reduce that barrier resulting from friction), using carbon steel pipelines with small amounts of additives (% wt) to reduce the barrier. The research also studied the increased rates of flow (FI%) in heavy oil (2 to 22:00 3 hours) in pipelines of different diameters of Interior (0.0508 m and 0.0381 m) using various additives (toluene and naphtha) of different weights (10,8,6,4,2)% wt. The results of the research showed an increase in the values of reducing barrier (Dr%) and an increase in flow rate (FI%) per factor, an increase in the ratios of accepting the barrier with the increase of Reynold no. (speed of liquid and the concentration of additives) and the presence of the function of reducing the barrier (Dr %) in the diameter of the largest pipeline that is much better than the smaller one, as well as the additives such as (naphtha and toluene) reduce the high viscosity of heavy oil since naphtha is much better (as a reducer) in lessening the viscosity of the heavy oil than toluene. The rate of reducing the barrier by using toluene and naphtha increases with drop of temperature at the same flow rate. The researcher suggested four correlation equations, two for each solvent with a particular diameter for the functions of Reynolds number (Re), the concentration of additives (C) and temperature (T) and most points are located in (± 10%). The results showed a clear convergence with the results obtained from the practical side of the research. This thesis was supervised by assistant professor Dr. Ayad Abdul Halim Abdul Razak, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Razek al-Khatib, while the discussion committee consisted of assistant professor Talib Abdullah Saleh from the department of petroleum engineering as chairman, assistant professor, Dr. Najwa Saber Majeed from the department of chemical engineering as a member,Dr. Safa Hussein Sahi from the department of reservoirs at the ministry of oil as a member.