Any latest development in the world of asphaltene inhibitor and asphaltene in general?
Manfred Eigner
Owner, ME Consultancy Services (MECS) and Oil & Energy Consultant
Thanks Win for your fine comments. They are 100% in line with my way of thinking about asphaltene deposition problems during oil production. There is no ideal solution and one has to look into each deposition problem separately. It may be possible to arrive at a solution for that particular case but the next problem may not fit. I hope you can agree to the new approach that people started to look into the phase behavior of native crude oil w.r.t. asphaltene solubility. By managing the phase behavior one may arrive at a more practical solution: how can we produce a life crude oil without initiating asphaltene precipitation or even deposition. Please note: I am using here two different physical phenomena on purpose: precipitation followed by deposition. Back in the eighties we were able to manage deposition thereby allowing precipitation (experience from wells in Kuwait). Mike was so kind to invite me to Oilfieldwiki to add some more practical information. I promised to do that, so watch the special page.
