Title: Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut on the performance of the centrifugal pump

Authors: Sayed A. Bellary; Md. Hamid Siddique; Abdus Samad; Jitendra S. Sangwai; Bohyun Chon

Addresses: Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Energy Resources Fusion Technology Research Center, INHA University, Incheon, Korea

Abstract: The viscosity of the oil-in-water or water-in-oil depends on the water-cut (WC) present in the system. At a certain WC, the water-crude oil emulsion gives the highest viscosity, showing phase inversion, at which the performance of a centrifugal pump drops. In this article, experimental and analytical investigations have been carried out to study the performance of a centrifugal pump for the crude oil-water emulsion systems prepared by mixing crude oil obtained from an Indian oil field and water. The viscosities of the emulsions having different WC were recorded and a phase inversion point within 60%-70% WC range was obtained. During testing of the pump, emulsion samples were collected and stability of the emulsions was determined. A performance study on the centrifugal pump has been carried out using various samples of the emulsions. The study shows that the increasing WC reduces the pump performance till the phase inversion point. It has been observed that the quality crude oil and the emulsion affect the performance of the centrifugal pump. [Received: February, 15 2016; Accepted: March 28, 2016]

Keywords: artificial lift; phase inversion; pump performance; water-cut; WC; water-crude oil emulsion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2017.085998

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2017 Vol.16 No.1, pp.71 - 88

Received: 15 Feb 2016
Accepted: 28 Mar 2016

Published online: 21 Aug 2017 *

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