Preparation and performance evaluation of stable foamy heavy oil

Abstract

Cold production and transportation of heavy oil is currently a hotspot issue in petroleum industry. In this study, an idea that heavy oil is transported in the form of foamy oil at room temperature was proposed. The effect of foaming agent type and concentration, foam stabilizer type and concentration, oil-water volume ratio and temperature on the foamy oil performance was explored by using Waring Blender method. A kind of stable foamy heavy oil was prepared and its property was evaluated from the quality, macro and micro, and rheology perspectives. The results indicate that the stable foamy oil can be prepared with 2.0 g/L Sodium benzenesulfonat and 1.5 g/L Dodecanol and oil-water volume ratio of 1: 1 at 20°C and 0.1 MPa. The stable foamy oil with a quality of about 70% is in the Mitchell quality range of a foaming fluid. The bubble diameter is normally distributed and the bubbles with a diameter of about 180μm are the most. In the testing range from 20 to 30°C, the foamy oil demonstrates pseudo-plastic behavior, and all the apparent viscosities at 100 1/s are less than 150 mPa s, and the viscosity reduction rates are more than 99.5%.