Effect of Inhibitors with Aromatic Solvents towards the Flow Properties of Crude Oil

Petroleum industry which is well known for its growth facing a major issue in transporting crude oil in the pipeline. The major issue which disrupts the flow in the pipeline is due to the fluctuation of the temperature gradient. The temperature in the pipeline normally falls below the room temperature and even reaches negative Celsius as the crude oil drilled off from oil rig. Certain components which appear in crude oil will tend to solidify or crystalize when the temperature in the pipelines decrease. Wax and asphaltene particle affects the flow properties as it will deposit or precipitate along the wall of pipelines which will block the flow by reducing the diameter of the pipelines. Viscosity will tend to increase when the wax and asphaltene particle precipitate in the crude oil. Hence, chemical injection method is implemented whereby inhibitor composed of three components are mixed together crude oil to measure the reduction of viscosity. The main objective of this research paper is to formulate the optimum ratio of components composed of Poly Octadecyl methacrylate (PODMA), Toluene (TOL), Methylcyclohexane (MCH) to form an inhibitor. The viscosities of the crude oil is recorded at the targeted temperature range which compliance with the Wax Appearance Temperature (WAT) of the crude oil. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is used before and after conducting the experiments in order to build the model and to get the optimized ratio of the components for the reduction of viscosity. Aspen HYSYS is also used to validate the results obtained from the experimental procedure. The final results show that the optimum ratio for the reduction of viscosity is 30% PODMA, 40% MCH and finally 50% TOL.