A Study on Optimal Operation and Energy Saving of Super Heavy Oil Pipeline

As the pattern of production of Liaohe oilfield is re-adjusted, the proportion of heavy and super heavy oil has become higher and higher. Rheological property of super heavy oil is complex. And the flow quality of super heavy oil is poor. Its viscosity is very high even at normal temperature. When super heavy oil flows in a pipeline, the flow pattern is usually laminar flow. The friction resistance mainly results from friction between super heavy oil and pipe wall and mutual shearing between oil layers that are near the pipe wall. Currently, the main transportation method of super heavy oil is heating transport. The super heavy oil need to be heated to a high temperature. But this causes big energy consumption, difficulty in insulation, high operation cost and other problems. For energy saving it is necessary to do research on optimal operation of super heavy oil pipeline. In this paper optimal operation calculating mathematical model of super heavy oil pipeline is established based on the researches on rheological property, viscosity-temperature property, thermodynamic calculation and hydraulic calculation, etc. Corresponding calculation software is programmed. Based on the practical situation of a super heavy oil pipeline in Liaohe oilfield of China, the example calculation is done. The calculation results indicate that the operation cost significantly reduces after the operation parameters are optimized.