Prediction of the Amount of Asphaltene Precipitation by Fuzzy c-means Clustering

Abstract

The study of asphaltene precipitation properties has been motivated by their propensity to aggregate, flocculate, precipitate, and adsorb onto interfaces. The tendency of asphaltenes to precipitation has posed great challenges for the petroleum industry. The most important parameters in asphaltene precipitation modeling and prediction are the asphaltene and oil solvent solubility parameters, which are very sensitive to reservoir and operational conditions. The driving force of asphaltene flocculation is the difference between asphaltene and oil solvent solubility parameter. Since the nature of asphaltene solubility is yet unknown and several unmodeled dynamics are hidden in the original systems, the existing prediction models may fail in predicting the asphaltene precipitation in crude oil systems. One of the ways in modeling such systems is using fuzzy c-means clustering, which needs some information about the systems; so based on some intelligent learning methods it can provide a suitable model. This article introduces a new implementation of the fuzzy c-means clustering computing technology in petroleum engineering. Results of this research indicate that the proposed prediction model, with recognizing the possible patterns between input and output variables, can successfully predict and model asphaltene precipitation in tank and live crude oils with good accuracy.