Triethanolamine (TEA) As Flow Improver For Heavy Crude Oils

Abstract

The production of crude oils is normally in remotes areas and pipelines are the most energy efficient way of transporting it. The crude oils being very viscous on extraction have to go through some processing to enable them to be transported by pipeline. Fresh crude oil is relatively mobile; however at lower temperatures when it has to be transported long distances through pipelines, it gradually becomes thicker and sluggish hampering its flow properties by forming crystals of wax on its wall and making it difficult to pump. Some heavy crude oils are characterized by high viscosity, high content of asphaltenes, low quantity of paraffin components and appreciable amounts of sulphur. Therefore, it is important to minimize the viscosity of the heavy crude oil. One well-known method of alleviating the problem is to treat the crude oil with wax crystal modifier. There are several options available including chemical additives such as flow improvers, viscosity reducer, and pour point depressants (PPDs). This work involves the evaluation of triethanolamine (TEA) as pour point depressant and flow improver by changing the feed ratios. Niger-Delta crude oil was used to evaluate the efficiency of triethanolamine (TEA) as additive through measurements of pour point and viscosity of treated and untreated crude oil. Triethanolamine (TEA) interferes in the wax crystallization process thus modifying the crystal structure of the paraffin present in the crude oil resulting in lowering pour point and viscosity of the crude oil.