VISCOSITY REDUCER IN IMPROVING FLOW PERFORMANCE

Heavy crude oil specifically contains paraffm of varying chain length and complex
molecular structure with aromatic properties. This structure of molecule had made them
higher in molecular weight which affected the viscosity and the rheology properties of
the crude oil to be undesirable. In extracting and transporting the heavy crude oil in the
most efficient way in term of avoiding energy losses and costs saving is to reduce the
viscosity effects. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to design a special
mixture of chemicals that will be named as Viscosity Reducer (VR) that able to reduce
the viscosity of crude oil more than 50%. This research outcome solely based on series of
testing and experiments conducted. The idea of reducing the viscosity is to reduce the
molecular weight of the crude oil in improving its rheology properties. Therefore, a cutter
or also known as cold cracker were applied into the crude oil to aher the properties of
crude oil by cutting the paraffm chain length into small chunks which reduces the
molecular weight of the composition of crude oil. This will reduce the viscosity of the
crude oil and improve the mobility whether in reservoir or in transporting media. The
cutter and the cold cracker will needed to be blend accordingly to treat a specific heavy
crude oil because not all the heavy crude oil in this world share the same properties.
Therefore ensuring the right chemical with the right concentration and percentage of
composition are crucial to avoid permanent aheration of crude oil and also damage to the
reservoir and fucilities. This research has already produce a prototype but still under
research to enhance its performance. It is known as M6. M6 had successfully reduced the
viscosity of the heavy crude oil sample up to almost 70%. M6 is as benchmark to this
research. M6 also needs several alteration and modification to enhance its performance to
he able to be commercialized.