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High viscosity and high density make heavy and extra heavy crude oils very difficult to produce. They cannot be pumped in their natural state and advanced technologies are required. Formation of oil-in-water emulsions is one of them. A typical emulsion contains 65% of dispersed phase and has a viscosity lower than 500 mPa.s. Current research is aimed at increasing the crude oil content at reduced costs with still good stability and low viscosity. Consequently, an experimental study was dedicated to the relationship between the structure and the rheological properties of heavy oil emulsions. Particular attention was paid to process parameters employed to prepare emulsions. Depending on the shear device, various emulsions have been obtained, either simple or multiple, monodisperse or bimodal. The resulting viscosity is discussed. It is particularly low when the emulsion is either coarse and unimodal or fine and simple. The highest viscosity is obtained when the emulsion is fine and multiple. The experimental results confirm that both composition variables and process parameters have to be taken into account to minimize viscosity of heavy oil emulsions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy oil cold production is faced with the foamy oil phenomenon: while extracted, a heavy crude oil is submitted to a depletion that can induce the formation of dispersed gas bubbles and makes it appear as a foam. This situation results in a change of the flow properties of the live oil that is still debated: correlations predict a decrease or an increase in the gas bubble-dispersed oil viscosity with the gas volume fraction. We attempted to improve the understanding of the foamy oil behavior through rheological measurements. A live oil was depleted inside the pressure cell of a controlled stress rheometer. The occurrence of bubbles was checked and visualized with x-ray scanning experiments. Viscosity was continuously measured using oscillatory and continuous tests. This particular experimental approach allowed us to successfully study the rheological behavior of a foamy oil in relationship with the two main parameters, which are the composition and the viscosity of the crude oils. A theoretical model describing the viscosity of a foamy oil has been established. It takes into account both first-order kinetics of appearance and release of bubbles in oil and a basic suspension model. Results from this model are in agreement with experimental data obtained from different heavy crude oils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When asphaltenes adsorb at liquid interfaces, after the rapid initial diffusion step toward the interface, a long reorganization and a progressive building of multilayers occur. The reorganization is faster at oil–water interfaces than at air–oil interfaces, but the multilayer formation takes similar times. In the case of oil–water interfaces, the time scales are similar for different oils, but the variation with asphaltene concentration is qualitatively different: adsorption becomes faster with increasing concentrations for oils that are good asphaltene solvents and slower in the case of poor solvents. The presence of surfactant changes significantly the adsorption process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]