In the petroleum industry, arterial deposition of asphaltenes is one of the issues requiring flowrnassurance consideration during asset development. As the physical or chemical conditions inside thernreservoir, and hence the wellbore, changes, the originally stable asphaltenes in the oil, can precipitate,rnpotentially leading to deposition in the wellbore. The arterial deposition of asphalenes then wouldrnreduce the production rate of oil. Remediation by solvent-soaks and squeezes is expensive, on the orderrnof several million dollars. The economic impact of such deposition must be anticipated and a suitablernphilosophy for management of these deposits should be developed. A key item in the successfulrnmanagement of asphaltene deposition requires reasonable estimation tools regarding the growth rate andrnlocation of deposits since this effects the gross up time of the production facility being designed.rnIn this work, a simulation tool that can be used to predict the amount of growth rate and locationrnof asphaltene deposits in wellbores / pipelines is presented. In this asphaltenes deposition simulator, therntransport equations are coupled with kinetic models to describe the precipitation, aggregation, andrndeposition of asphaltenes. The phase behavior of asphaltenes in oil is described by using the PerturbedrnChain version of Statistical Associating Fluid Theory Equation of State (PC-SAFT EOS). In this paper,rnthe protocol that needs to be followed for the application of this deposition simulator to ascertain growthrnrate and location of asphaltenes in field scenarios is presented. The experimental methods required tornobtain the kinetic model parameters are also discussed. Application of the simulator to study asphaltenerndeposition in one of the pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico that has reported asphaltene depositionrnproblems is also presented.
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