A pilot test of ultrasonic viscosity reduction of heavy crude oil in oilfield

The high temperature, high pressure and high density inside a collapsed acoustic bubble are the mechanisms and the foundation of sonication in liquid. The development of acoustic cavitation in theory and in experiment is reviewed briefly from the first stage of the 20th century. The bottleneck problem of sonication in liquid on the industry scale is analyzed emphatically and up to now, it is still unsolved. In this paper, optimizing the spatial distribution of acoustic cavitation is investigated to overcome the bottleneck. The experiments show that it is feasible. Based on the experiments, an ultrasonic batch processing prototype of 10kW for reducing the viscosity of heavy crude oil is designed and developed. A pilot test is done in the oil field in the northwest of China. The pilot test shows that it can be used to reduce the viscosity of heavy crude oil for the practical production and transportation on the industrial scale. At last, the perspective of the acoustic processing is discussed.