Revisiting Asphaltene Deposition Tool (ADEPT): Field Application

Asphaltenes tend to deposit in reservoir, well tubing, flow lines, separators, etc., causing significant production losses. Asphaltenes are originally stable in crude oil at reservoir conditions. However, changes in temperature, pressure, and/or composition may cause asphaltenes to precipitate and potentially deposit onto the surfaces of a flowing conduit. There are several publications in the literature that discuss modeling of asphaltene phase behavior in oil as well as development of deposition models to simulate asphaltene deposition profiles along a flow path. In this paper, a previously reported asphaltene deposition tool (ADEPT) is used to study the deposition in a subsea pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first demonstration of an asphaltene deposition simulator that has been used in a fully predictive manner. All of the required kinetic parameters used for deposition predictions were experimentally measured. A new methodology to scale up the deposition constant measured from a small-scal...