CRUDE OIL POUR POINT MEASUREMENT BY USING ROTATIONAL METHOD

The petroleum industry has facing great challenges in all aspects such as wax
deposition. Transportation and production of waxy crude oil has becomes major
operational problem that is needed to be solved. The wax deposition along the
surface facilities occurred due to the ambient temperature of the crude oil drop below
the crude oil pour point. Therefore, determining crude oil pour point is very
significant and important in solving this problem. Tilt method is a conventional
method in measuring crude oil pour point in petroleum industry. However, rotational
method is an alternative developed in obtaining the crude oil pour point. Pretreatment
is a crucial process subjected to crude oil in ensuring the pour point of the
crude oil that obtained is reliable and accurate before measurement of pour point is
conducted. In this project, the pre-treatment is varied in term of settling time and
pre-heating temperature which will be resulted in the crystallization process of wax.
As the samples have undergone pre-treatment, the pour point of crude oil is
measured by using rotational method and tilt method in comparing the value of pour
point obtained from varied pre-heating temperature, settling time and different
measurement methods.