(55g) New Crude Oil Viscosity Models for Burgan Oilfield

In the petroleum industry, the prediction of viscosity using correlations is commonly used for solving many reservoir engineering and surface production problems. In the last seven decades, several black oil viscosity models have been developed. However, these models may only be suitable for the geological regions for which they were developed and may not provide acceptable results for crude oils for other regions.

The purpose of this paper is to create a comprehensive oil viscosity models for the Greater Burgan Oilfield-Kuwait which is the second-largest oil field in the world with estimated recoverable oil of nearly 6% of the world's proven conventional oil reserve. Therefore, 824 data points of oil viscosity measurements for the Greater Burgan Oil Field has been used to evaluate the accuracy of the published models and later used to develop a new oil viscosity models for estimating dead, saturated, bubble point, and under saturated oil viscosities. The validity and accuracy of the proposed models were confirmed by comparing their predictions with 166 measured data points from the field itself.

The new models will improve our predications of oil flow rate, pressure drop in tubing and flow lines and hence the design of production equipment and surface facilities. These models can easily be integrated into reservoir simulation for planning primary, secondary and EOR studies.