Venezuelans invent additive that improves the mobility of Orinoco Oil Belt crude oil
It is a continuous challenge to transport the oil found in the Orinoco Oil Belt field from the wells to the tank yards and to the shipping ports. The reasons for which the transportation of the oil found in the Orinoco Oil Belt is a continuous challenge, since the mobility of such oil is very low, due to the fact that there are physical properties of the oil that influence such low mobility, such as: high viscosity, low API gravity values.
It is important to highlight that despite the high viscosity and low API gravity values, the mobility of this oil in some cases is more than enough to flow from the well to the surface, however the proposal by scholars, scientists and engineers is to improve the mobility of the oil by means of some chemical additives that can improve its viscosity and API degrees.
Due to the difficulty of having to transport these crudes to these upgrading centers, proposals have been made to improve their viscosity by using some additives that help to improve their mobility and future transportation.
Based on the need to improve the mobility of crude oil from the Orinoco Oil Belt, the fluidizing additive DAL-994 was formulated, which manages to improve the mobility of this oil by a large percentage, although it improves mobility, with this additive there is still the need to add diluents to obtain an improved oil, which allows lower transportation costs and improve the quality of marketing.
It can be concluded that for the specific case of the Orinoco oil belt whose oil ranges from heavy to extra heavy classification, it is necessary to continue studying the methods, processes and chemical additives that can improve the viscosity of the oil, to the point that the ease of its transportation can be optimized and the quality of the oil is raised in relation to its API gravity so that the commercialization and sale can leave better profits for the sale of this oil.