A Simple Correlation for the Viscosity of Heavy Oils From Liaohe Basin, NE China
Authors: Zhang C. , Zhao H. , Hu M. , Xiao Q. , Li J. , Cai C. 
Published: March 2010

Viscosity values (μ) were measured at different temperatures (40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 °C) for a set of dead oils from the Liaohe basin, NE China, covering a viscosity range from 76 to 34,590 mPa •s at 50 °C. A good relationship emerges between temperature and viscosity and a corresponding viscosity temperature correlation with a high coefficient was obtained for every oil sample. Detailed investigations revealed that μT (viscosity values at temperature T = 60, 70, 80 and 90 °C) shows a strong function of μ50 (viscosity value at 50 °C) in the form of μT = a μ50b, in which the parameters a and b show a function of temperature [a = ƒ(T) and b = ƒ1(T)] with high coefficients. Therefore, a new simple correlation for predicting oil viscosity has been deduced as a function of temperature and μ50 in the form of μT = ƒ(T) μ50 ƒ1(T) with only two input parameters: temperature and viscosity at 50 °C. The validity of the model for Liaohe heavy oils has been tentatively confirmed by a set of experimental data from the laboratory of the Liaohe Oil Field with most errors less than 10% for the viscosity prediction at 100 °C. The correlation reported in this paper may provide an alternative method to predict the viscosity for dead oils, especially for heavy oils with μ50 even up to 160,000 mPa •s in the Liaohe basin.

Introduction

Despite the high viscosity, heavy oil is becoming a more and more important part of the energy supply in the world with the petroleum demand growing and conventional oil depleting. Owing to the extreme importance of viscosity in planning possible EOR schemes, testing wells and designing production equipment and pipelines, it is necessary to estimate it accurately. As for heavy oils, the high viscosity may be one of the most important physical properties and the most serious impediments in various aspects of petroleum engineering. Therefore, much attention has been focused on viscosity determination. A laboratory measure of a crude oil often provides viscosity information at a fixed temperature. However, oil viscosities at other temperatures are often required. Therefore, viscosity prediction for crude oils at a desired temperature by a common laboratory measure will be very useful.

A number of empirical viscosity correlations or prediction models based on some specific parameters have been documented in the literature. Many correlations for predicting viscosity of dead oil were reported by Beggs and Robinson(1), Glaso(2), Kartoatmodjo and Schmidt(3), Elsharkawy and Alikhan(4), and Naseri et al.(5). All the prediction models have expressed the dead oil viscosity as a function of oil API gravity and temperature and mainly focused on conventional oils. Limited methods have been reported for viscosity prediction for heavy oils(6, 7), even less for oils with viscosity higher than 20,000 mPa •s. In this paper, a new simple viscosity correlation is proposed based on the temperature-viscosity data of oils from the Liaohe basin, NE China. It will be seen here that the correlation can be used as an alternative method to predict oil viscosity, especially for heavy oils, at a desired temperature using a common viscosity value μ50.