EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL DETERMINATION OF HEAVY OIL VISCOSITY UNDER RESERVOIR CONDITIONS

The USA deposits of heavy oils and tar sands contain significant energy reserves. Thermal methods, particularly steam drive and steam soak, are used to recover heavy oils and bitumen. Thermal methods rely on several displacement mechanisms to recover oil, but the most important is the reduction of crude viscosity with increasing temperature. The main objective of this research is to propose a simple procedure to predict heavy oil viscosity at reservoir conditions as a function of easily determined physical properties. This procedure will avoid costly experimental testing and reduce uncertainty in designing thermal recovery processes. First, we reviewed critically the existing literature choosing the most promising models for viscosity determination. Then, we modified an existing viscosity correlation, based on the corresponding states principle in order to fit more than two thousand commercial viscosity data. We collected data for compositional and black oil samples (absence of compositional data). The data were screened for inconsistencies resulting from experimental error. A procedure based on the monotonic increase or decrease of key variables was implemented to carry out the screening process. The modified equation was used to calculate the viscosity of several oil samples where compositional data were available. Finally, a simple procedure was proposed to calculate black oil viscosity from common experimental information such as, boiling point, API gravity and molecular weight