Role of acrylate terpolymers in flow assurance studies of crude oil

Abstract

Paraffinic crude oil causes deposition in the pipeline at low temperatures which hinders the flow during pipeline transportation. The primary technique for mitigation of paraffin deposition is chemical treatment. Polymeric chemical additives have gained considerable attention as flow improvers for waxy crude oil. Terpolymer application for flow assurance is a novel approach since terpolymers are seldom used as chemical additives for crude oil. Current research aims to synthesize four acrylate terpolymers with different alkyl pendant chains and study their effect on the rheological behavior of crude oil. The structure of additives was validated and their depression effect was investigated. The results of the investigation revealed that the additives showed significant decrease in pour point (ΔPP = 21 °C for CO-1 and 15 °C for CO-2) at a dose of 1000 ppm for CO-1 and 2000 ppm for CO-2. These results were also supported by rheological data which exhibited a significant reduction in viscosity (>75%) of both the crude oils which showed the efficiency of additives as flow improvers. Moreover, the cold finger test displayed excellent paraffin inhibition efficiency of synthesized additives (66 and 52% for CO-1 and CO-2, respectively). The investigation demonstrated a promising role of terpolymers as flow improvers for waxy crude oil.