The Influence of Heavy Oil Complosition on Its Viscosity

The quantitative experiments for study of relationship between heavy oil composition and its viscosity are made. The result shows that the relationship of exponential function occurs between percentage content of saturated hydrocarbon, aromatic hydrocarbon, neutral nonhydrocarbon, acidic non-hydrocarbon, colloid and bitumencarb in heavy oil and its viscosity. Among them, the viscosity of heavy oil decreases with the increase of contents of saturated hydrocarbon and aromatic hydrocarbon, and increases with the increase of contents of neutral nonhydrocarbon, acidic non-hydrocarbon, colloid and bitumencarb in the form of exponential function. The degree of the influence on the viscosity is as follows: colloid and bitumencarbacidic non-hydrocarbonneutral non-hydrocarbon, the former is the most important factor to affect the viscosity of heavy oil or absolutely contributes to it. This is coincident with the results from other experiments. Hence, to decrease the content of neutral and acidic non-hydrocarbons, colloid and bitumencarb will effectively decrease the viscosity of heavy oil.