Evaluation of empirical correlations for bubblepoint oil formation volume factor

Abstract This paper evaluates several empirical correlations for estimating the bubblepoint oil formation volume factor (FVF) for worldwide application. A total of 674 experimentally obtained pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) data gathered from different published sources is used for analysis of correlated parameters of physical properties and for comparison of the accuracy of correlations. A literature survey of empirical correlations for predicting bubblepoint oil FVF is provided along with their limit of applicability. The statistical and graphical results for the data used in this study show that some of the correlations were violating the physical behavior of bubblepoint oil FVF as a function of the gas relative density. Also, all the available correlations do not adequately represent the contribution of solution gas-oil ratio and temperature at their higher values.