Development of Prediction Model for Dead Oil Viscosity

Abstract

Viscosity is an important property for the upstream and the downstream processes, analysis, simulations and calculations. Ideally, viscosity is measured experimentally in laboratories. However, when such direct measurements are not available, since they are expensive and time consuming, published correlations are needed to estimate the viscosity. These correlations have been proposed for various areas and crude oils and they are usually varied in their complexity and accuracy. The study has been developed a predictive correlation model of dead oil viscosity of Sudanese light crude oils using raw experimental data, which are collected from Pressure Volume Temperature reports of Sudanese fields. The new correlation which based on the temperature and oil gravity of the light crude oils is generated by using Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) program. Beal, Beggs, Glaso, Labide, and Kartoamodjo correlation models were evaluated against (78 points) of experimental data of dead oil viscosity of Sudanese light crude oils. It has been found through statistical analysis that Beggs Rodinson model was the suitable correlation model for prediction dead viscosity of light crude oil of Sudanese data. The new predictive correlation has been validated. The validation has been performed against experimental data and against Begss Robison model. It has been found that the new developed correlation showed better results in terms of statistical factors compared with Beggs Robison correlation.