Effect of Hydrocarbon Fluid Characterization on Wax Precipitation Modeling

The hydrocarbon plus fractions that comprise a significant portion of naturally occurring hydrocarbon fluids create major problems when determining the thermodynamic properties and the volumetric behavior of these fluids by equations of state. These problems arise due to the difficulty of properly characterizing the plus fractions (heavy ends). Proper characterization of the heavier components is important when cubic equations oj state and/or solid formation thermodynamic models are used to describe complex phase behavior o] reservoir fluids. The effect of heavy fructions characterization on thermodynamic modeling of H ax precipitation has been investigated using different models including Won, Pan and Proposed Models. In order to characterize the plus fraction (heavier part) as a series of pseudocomponents. a probability model that expresses the mole fraction as a continuous function of the molecular weight has been used. The study has been conducted using several mixtures. Two different SCNs (Single Carbon Number), C7+ and C10+,were chosen. The chosen SCNs were distributed to multicomponents of five, six, and/or ten using continuous method. The results showed that the fractioning is required to be able to predict wax precipitation. Distribution of C10: using a proper distribution function has shown improvement in predictions of WAT and the amount of ~vax deposited in comparison with the characterization of C7+ using semi-continuous approach. In predicting WAT and the amount (if wax build up the developed model showed superiority over the others.