Use of a novel surfactant for improving the transportability/transportation of heavy/viscous crude oils

In this paper, we present the application of a newly designed surfactant molecule for enhancing the flow properties of heavy/viscous crude oils. A novel surfactant molecule was designed through an economic processing technique. The rheological behavior of heavy crude oil/aqueous solution of surfactant emulsions as well as heavy crude oil/surfactant emulsions has been investigated using a programmable viscometer. The effects of shear rate, temperature and oil concentration on the viscosity have been determined. From the rheological data, the high potential of the newly developed surfactant molecule in producing less viscous crude oil emulsions at a lower cost and less mixing energy is confirmed when compared with that of the prepared from a commercial surfactant. A constitutive model was developed to characterize the pseudoplastic behavior of the heavy crude oil and its emulsions. The model showed good accuracy on data with a correlation coefficient higher than 93%. The transportation of heavy crude oils as emulsions can be proposed as an alternative to blending the crude oil with natural gas condensate or other diluent.