Experimental study of the rheological behaviour of the algerian crude oil

The Oil companies are increasingly concerned with the recovery of oil wells by focusing on the residual amounts retained in the pockets through the injection of large quantities of water. Hence, this work aims at studying experimentally the effects of the presence of the water on the capacity of the crude oil recovery. For this purpose, two samples of synthetic crude oil, from the Algerian Sahara, were prepared. The experimental results, expressed in terms ofrevealed the Newtonian fluid character. The oil-water emulsions (30%, 50% and 70% in water), that are thermodynamically relatively stable, found to exhibit a Herschel-Bulkley and Bingham rheological models. Apart from this, the slow phase separation implied much larger energy and therefore constituted a major obstacle for the storage and the trading of the finished product. The release of the oil emulsion will result in the production of pollution that is required to be reduced to the minimum. The analysis of the stability of the emulsions was introduced by using the concept of interfacial dilatation module. It was found that emulsions were characterized by a plate region due to the formation of a network of pseudo-gel, in accordance with the physical and chemical bonds to oil-water interface.