Minisymposium “Mathematical Problems in Oil Industry”

In recent years the need of exploiting reservoirs of oil of lesser quality has pushed the research of the chemical, physical and rheological behaviour of oils particularly rich in heavy hydrocarbons. The latter category includes a large class of n—alkanes, collectively termed “wax”, up to the so—called asphaltenes. Asphaltenes may develop a tendency to aggregate and to precipitate. Wax can segregate at sufficiently low temperatures and also give rise to the phenomenon of molecular diffusion induced by thermal gradients. The outcome of all such phenomena is the formation of deposits, which can reduce the lumen of pipelines, possibly leading to obstruction. Therefore it is quite obvious that the possibility of predicting the rate of precipitation of asphaltenes or the rate of wax deposition has a great economic impact.