Detrimental and Beneficial Contributions of Asphaltene in Fluid Flow and Production from Porous Media

Vahid Hematfar

Supervisors: Dr. John Chen
Dr. Brij Maini
3VHematfar

Abstract

In this research, experimental data were used in simulation to diagnose the important parameters, tune the model and observe the behavior of asphaltene dependent variables. The role of sensitive parameters was analyzed to figure out the influence of asphaltene adsorption on displacement performance. Contributing factors may compete or collaborate for asphaltene adsorption and recovery. Mainly owing to water film properties, asphaltene adsorption may improve or reduce the water flooding performance and recovery. The role of desorption, flow diversion effects, mobility effects and/or IFT needs to be considered for interpretation.