Oil Sludge Deposition in Storage Tanks: A Case Study for Russian Crude Oil in Mo-he Station

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Abstract
The oil tank can form a considerable amount of sludge deposition after continuous accumulation, which cause a seriously negative impact on both the storage capacity and the safe operation of the oil tank. Therefore, it is important to anticipate the rate of sludge deposition in advance so that proper measures can be planned to remove this heavy layer on the bottom. This paper proposes a method using a relatively simple formula for predicting the sludge deposits. The sedimentation mechanism of wax and asphaltene is introduced and summarized from both the micro and macro aspects, the factors causing the interaction between particles and the influence on coalescence were analyzed. We applied our prediction methods to calculate the sludge deposition of four oil tanks in Mo-he Station and compared our results with the data measured by experiments. The results show that our method had a good general accuracy to experimental data and can be used directly for on-site engineers to anticipate real sludge height before measuring the oil level inside the tank.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (51804319)
  • Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum (2462018YJRC002)
  • Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing (2462020YXZZ045)

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