Density Prediction of Asphaltenic Synthetic Oil and Comparison with Crude Oil at Different Operating Conditions

The measurement and prediction of density is required for accurate assessment of the production rate of oil. In the present study, the impact of synergetic parameters (pressure, temperature, and fluid composition) on the density of asphaltenic synthetic oils and crude oil is investigated. Furthermore, within the range of operating condition for 546 experimental data of asphaltenic synthetic oils, a correlation is proposed for synthetic oil including toluene, normal heptane and asphaltene extracted from various crude oils. The comparison between the experimental data and the predicted densities showed that the proposed model accurately predicted the experimental data with correlation coefficients (R2) of more than 0.97. The results also confirmed that the propensity of densities by changing various parameters are as follows. At a given temperature as pressure increases, density increased for crude and synthetic oils. Furthermore, for both types of attempted oils, at different pressures, an increase in temperature caused the reduction of the density. The impact of temperature was dominant in the range of 50 to 80 °C. In addition, for asphaltenic synthetic oils, an increase in the concentration of asphaltene in the synthetic oils, especially from 5 to 10 wt. %, resulted in a significant increase in the oil density.