Characterizing the Paraffinic Composition in Malaysian Crudes

Oil companies are now exploring and venturing into the potential opportunities in subsea and deepwater regions which at the same time also increase the risks and technical challenges. However, the flow assurance of reservoir fluids to the surface as well as the subsequent delivery to onshore refinery facilities is still the major concern in justifying the production economics feasibility. One of the significant risks in flow assurance management would be the deposition and gelation of paraffins by waxy crudes.
The current developed methods in handling flow assurance risk imposed by waxy crudes have certain disadvantages and tend to increase the operating expenses. Furthermore, production problems and developed solution vary from reservoir to reservoir.
This project strives to study and analyze the behaviour of waxy crudes especially in Malaysia oil basins. The study focuses on the carbon number distribution, wax content and wax appearance temperature (WAT) that would help to characterize the paraffinic composition in Malaysia’s crude oils. In this project, four crude oil samples from different field location (Miri, Angsi, Penara and Dulang) are being emphasized.
A few research methodologies are applied in order to investigate the mentioned properties. The research methodology utilizes certain experimental equipments such as Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Further analysis and computation on obtained results also is carried out to generate desired research outcomes.
Findings show that crude oil sample with higher mol percent of paraffinic composition has higher wax appearance temperature and wax content, which is obviously observed in crude oil sample from Penara. Hence, there is a linear relationship between the presence of paraffinic composition in crude oil and the occurrence of wax deposition in pipelines