Wax inhibitor performance comparison for waxy crude oil from Fang oilfield

Carbon Capture, Storage and Utilization Research Laboratory, Department of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand.

^* Corresponding author: Krengkrai.M@chula.ac.th

Abstract

In petroleum chemistry, waxy oil from paraffins can cause operating problems for oil production. The chemical method is used to remove by using chemicals or additives to prevent the wax problem. In this study, the performance of wax inhibitor are evaluated by the measurement of pour-point reduction and wax deposition of crude oil from Mae Soon area, Fang oilfield. Wax deposition is determined by cold finger technique. Wax inhibitors, hexane, Poly(maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) (PMAO) and monoethanolamine (MEA) are mixed in oil sample at various concentrations. From the experiment, it is presented that hexane is used to reduce pour-point temperature up to 19.55 % and to reduce wax deposit up to 92.56 %. Moreover, MEA and PMAO have less effect on pour-point reduction. However, they have high efficiency to prevent wax deposition. PMAO provide the better wax deposition performance than MEA. The amount of wax deposit is lower at the same conditions. The percentage of wax deposit is from 39.19 % to 83.02 % for MEA and from 58.54 % to 88.51 % for PMAO. Furthermore, from the results, the preferred concentration of hexane can be at 10 % and PMAO can be 7500 ppm at low temperature or 5000 ppm for higher temperature. The results of this research can be applied to the practical way for wax deposition prevention operation in Mae Soon area in Fang oilfield to reduce the wax problem in the future.