Emulsions in Oil Pipeline Flow Transport

In the oil production industry, emulsification – two immiscible liquids mix together, is unavoidable as crude oil is usually produced together with water from the reservoir. The presence of emulsions brings numerous undesirable effects to the industry; it affects the flow regimes and flow behavior, reduces the quality of crude oil, requires longer retention time in the separation vessels, causes corrosion to the transport system, contaminates catalyst used in the refining process that leads to huge economic losses. So, it is essential to investigate the formation of emulsions and to study the flow behavior in the pipeline so that proper method can be recommended for the control of the effect of emulsions. It is important to remark that the formation of emulsions through flow shear using lab-scale flow rig has been less researched. This leads to the objectives of this study, which are: first, to characterize the formation of water-in-crude oil (W/O) emulsions formed through the constriction in the pipeline; second, to investigate the effects of W/O emulsions to pipeline flow transport; and third, to analyze the roles of turbulent energy in emulsions formation and flow transport in the pipeline system. This research work enables the oil industry to provide a better strategy in treating the emulsification phenomena in the pipeline transportation system. In the industry, optimum conditions can be obtained from the combination of Reynolds number and types of pipeline constriction in order to obtain lowest wall shear stress so that the energy losses during the transportation of crude in the pipeline can be minimized.