New reagents for field preparation of oil

Abstract

The article discusses the issues of obtaining new chemical reagents and their use for destruction of oil-water emulsions in the field conditions during the paraffin oil preparation. The purpose of the research was to create a technology for producing a reagent based on fatty acids and aliphatic alcohols of effective formulation for dehydrating and desalting paraffin oils, reducing the complex viscosity of oil-water emulsions. The method of mixing surfactants with various structures in the presence of a certain set of initial components and the selection of reagent formulations with different properties are proposed. Several individual compounds in a mixture that exhibit a synergistic effect are introduced to the surfactants’ formulation. The proposed compositions have a set of properties resulting from their combined action. As a result of the research, the reagent's effective formulation was obtained, including a nonionic demulsifier, which was used as esterified fatty acids isolated from cotton soap stock, as well as sulphanole, polidocanol ALM-10 and solvent at certain ratios. The laboratory tests of the new composition, carried out on oil from the Ashysay field and model emulsions, showed that the composition belongs to reagents for destruction of oil-water emulsions. It was found that the reagent sulphanole exhibits pronounced detergent properties in the composition's formulation. The developed formulation's demulsifying action synergism during dehydration of oil emulsions in a certain range of ratios of certain components was revealed. The emulsion's stability was studied during 3 hours at a temperature of 20 and 60°C. It was found that for the oil emulsion in the time interval from 30 minutes to 3 hours, the amount of released water was from 30 to 60%, depending on the oil temperature. The effectiveness of the reagent's proposed formulation is also shown on microscopic images. In terms of the dehydration effectiveness, the reagent is not inferior to known formulations for demulsification of paraffin oil. Expanding its functionality while maintaining demulsifying ability is of practical interest for field preparation of flowstream in oil deposits.