Experimental Study of Upgrading KU-H Heavy Oil Using Solubilized Catalysts with Hydrogen Donors

Marco Garnica, et al
Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo

The effects of some metallic oxides used to upgrade the properties of heavy crude oil are researched. The underlying objective is to increase the mobility of the oil in the reservoir by reducing viscosity and improving the oil quality (e.g. by diminishing the asphaltene and sulfur contents and increasing its °API gravity) using transition metal supported in alumina and unsupported from transition metals derived from either acetylacetonate or alkylhexanoate in liquid phase homogeneously mixed with heavy crude oil as well as metal transition supported in alumina.

KU-H heavy crude oil from the Golf of Mexico was studied. The API gravity was increased from 12.5 to 21-26, the kinematics viscosity was decreased from 18,130 to 100-8 cSt at 298 K, the asphaltene content was reduced from 26 to 7 wt%, the removed sulfur ranged from 30 to 60%, and the distillable fraction was increased from 20 to 30 wt%; the aforementioned results were obtained by Simulated Distillation and True Boiling Point (TBP).

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90062©2006 AAPG Hedberg Research Conference, Veracruz, Mexico