Measurement and Modeling of Wax Deposition in Crude Oil Pipelines

Abstract

Abstract One of the problems faced by the petroleum industry is the wax deposition in pipelines during transportation of waxy crude oil. Oil companies dealing with waxy crude often spend millions of dollars in remedial procedures. An ideal design should use an accurate mathematical model that would include all salient features of wax deposition and waxy crude transport to predict wax deposition during crude oil transportation. In this paper, a comprehensive mathematical model for quantitative prediction of wax deposition for a multicomponent hydrocarbons mixture (oil) has been developed. The wax deposition is estimated from the diffusion of wax from the bulk towards the wall as a result of temperature gradients. Parametric studies on the variation of the amount of wax deposition were performed for a mixture of toluene and oil wax cut in an experimental setup. Overall predictive ability of the proposed model is excellent for the laminar flow.