BUITEMS

Chemistry of Petroleum.

Major：Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering

Semester: 5th
Subject: Properties of Reservoir Fluids

2020.Nov
1/50
BUITEMS Contents
Introduction

Chemistry of petroleum

Alkanes and Nomenclature of alkanes

Alkenes and Nomenclature of alkenes

Alkynes and Nomenclature of Alkynes

Naphthenes and Nomenclature of

Naphthenes

Condensed Rings

Aromatics
BUITEMS Contents
Non hydrocarbon components of Petroleum

Resins and Asphaltenes

 Introduction

Introduction

 Petroleum deposits are composed of organic chemicals.

 Petroleum reservoir fluids are relating to a class which is refer to the hydrocarbon phase and

the water phase, exist under a variety of temperature and pressure conditions in a reservoir.

 The influence of water phase (interstitial water) on the phase behaviour and properties of

hydrocarbon phase is of minor consideration because of their low mutual solubilities.

 The term petroleum reservoir fluids generally refers to the hydrocarbon phase in a

petroleum reservoir, hydrocarbons existing in petroleum reservoirs are a mixture of

different types of chemical compounds made up of carbon and hydrogen and some non

hydrocarbon constituents are also present.

 Introduction

 HC in petroleum reservoirs exist in either gaseous, liquid or solid state, which is dictated by

chemical composition and by the temperature and pressure conditions.

 All HC’s produced from the reservoir are in gaseous and liquid state and are broadly referred

as natural gas or crude oil.

 The reservoirs are then simply named as;

i.Dry gas

ii.Wet gas

iii.Gas condensate

iv.Volatile oil

v. Black oil reservoir.

 Chemistry of petroleum

Chemistry of petroleum:

 Petroleum reservoir fluids are made up of chemical compounds, their chemistry differs

widely from one fluid to the other because of variation in the type of chemical compounds

and the amount in which they are present.

 Reservoir gases generally contain smaller molecules and their chemical description is

relatively easier to deal with. However in case of oil this is not the case because they are made

up of large molecules and they have chemical complexity due to this reason making every

oil unique in nature.

 Chemistry of petroleum

 Detailed chemical description of reservoir oil is of prime importance in the downstream

(petroleum refining) industry however this is not of much significance in the upstream

(exploration and production) industry.

 When the chemical mixture is composed of small molecules it is a gas at normal temperature

and pressure. When the mixture contains larger molecules it is liquid at normal temperature

and pressures.

 Crude oils are classified chemically according to the structures of the larger molecules in

the mixture.

 According to Danish and Riazi the major classes of hydrocarbons are;

i. Paraffins or alkanes

ii. Olefins or alkenes

 Chemistry of petroleum

 The first three are sometimes referred to as aliphatics.

 According to Tissot and Welte olefins are essentially absent and uncommon in naturally

occurring hydrocarbons.

 Petroleum reservoir fluids also contain nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and metals such as nickel

and vanadium. Gas reservoirs containing predominantly nitrogen, CO2 and H2S have

also been discovered.

 High molecular weight constituent of oils usually contain nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen

compounds, which are referred to as resins and asphaltenes.

 Reservoir gases that contain H2S are called sour gases or sour crudes. Those which are free

from H2S are normally termed sweet gases or sweet oils.

 Alkanes and Nomenclature of alkanes

Paraffins or alkanes:

 Are straight chain saturated HC’s having a general formula CnH2n+2

Nomenclature of alkanes:

 The nomenclature system commonly in use is known as the IUPAC rules. These rules are;

 The longest chain of carbon atoms is selected on which various alkyl groups are considered to

be substituted.

 Start numbering the longest continuous chain from the end from where the branched chain

gets the lowest number.

 Alkanes and Nomenclature of alkanes

 When there are two identical substituents in one position, numbers are supplied for both. e.g;

 At atmospheric pressure and standard temperature methane through butane exist as gaseous

phase, where as pentane through hexadecane exist as liquid phase and heptadecane

onward exist as solid phase also known as wax like solids.

 In alkanes carbon atoms form continuous chains but sometimes it may contain branched

chains in which more than two carbon atoms are linked together. For example butane have

two structures;
 Alkanes and Nomenclature of alkanes

 These different configurations are called as structural isomers or simply as isomers. They have

identical formulas but distinct structures.

 When two or more different substituents are present, common method is to list the substituents

in alphabetical order. e.g;

 Alkenes and Nomenclature of alkenes

Alkenes:

 Are unsaturated HC’s having a general formula CnH2n

Nomenclature of alkenes

The nomenclature system commonly in use is known as the IUPAC rules. These rules are;

 The longest chain of carbon atoms is selected which contain carbon- carbon double bond.

 Indicate by a number the position of the double bond in the parent chain and start numbering

from the end from where the double bond gets the lowest number.
 Alkenes and Nomenclature of alkenes

 Indicate the position of the alkyl attached to the parent chain. e.g;
 Alkenes and Nomenclature of alkenes

 Many HC compounds contain two or more double bonds. These are known as alkadienes,

alkatrienes and alkatetraenes, with the suffix denoting the number of double bonds. The

location of each double bond is specified by number.

 Alkynes and Nomenclature of Alkynes

Alkynes:

 Are unsaturated HC’s having a general formula CnH2n-2

Nomenclature of Alkynes:

The IUPAC rules for the nomenclature of Alkynes are exactly the same as for naming of alkenes

except the suffix ‘yne’ is replaced by ‘-ene’

 Naphthenes or Cycloparaffins

Naphthenes or Cycloparaffins:

 Cycloparaffins, cycloalkanes, alicyclic HC’s are more commonly named as naphthenes, are

normally found in crude oils and are important constituent of petroleum. They have a general

formula of CnH2n.
 Nomenclature of Naphthenes or Cycloparaffins

Nomenclature of Naphthenes or Cycloparaffins:

 Cycloalkanes are named by pre-fixing cyclo- to the name of the alkane having the same

number of carbon atoms.

 Nomenclature of Naphthenes or Cycloparaffins

 Substituents on the rings are named and positions are indicated by the number of carbon at

which it is attached and the numbering of carbon is done so that the branch gets the lowest

possible number.
 Condensed Rings

Condensed Rings:

 Cycloparaffins can have more than one ring, with rings shared carbon atoms are called

condensed rings.

 Condensed ring structures commonly found in petroleum are;

 Aromatics

Aromatics

 Aromatic compounds are also called arenes include benzene and compounds that resemble

benzene in chemical behaviour.

 Properties of benzene that distinguish it from aliphatic HC’s are called aromatic properties.

This class of HC’s (aromatics) generally have pleasant, sweet odor.

 They have general formula CnH2n-6 that begins with benzene C6H6. toluene C7H8, xylene

C8H10

 Aromatics are cyclic, unsaturated HC’s that contain carbon-carbon double bond like benzene.

 Aromatics are important constituent of HC’s found in almost every oil.

 Non hydrocarbon components of Petroleum

Non hydrocarbon components of Petroleum

 In crude oil, the elements such as sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen exist in the form of hydrocarbon

compounds or colloidal and bituminous substances.

 Due to the impurities they are collectively called non hydrocarbon compounds.

Colloidal

 A colloid is a mixture in which one substance of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles

is suspended throughout another substance.

 Non hydrocarbon components of Petroleum

Bitumen

 Black viscous mixture of HCs obtained naturally or as a residue from petroleum distillation.

 These larger nonhydrocarbon compounds form a class of chemicals generally called resins and

asphaltenes.
Resins and Asphaltenes
 Chemicals in petroleum are classified as paraffins, naphthenes, aromatics and resin-
asphaltenes.
 Resins and asphaltenes are large molecules, primarily hydrogen and carbon, with one to three
sulphur, oxygen or nitrogen atoms per molecule.
 Basic structure is composed of rings, primarily aromatics, from three to ten or more rings in
each molecule.
 The non hydrocarbon atoms can be a part of the ring structure or can be located in links
connecting the rings.
 Non hydrocarbon components of Petroleum

 Asphaltenes do not dissolve in petroleum but are dispersed as colloids but resins readily

dissolve in petroleum.

 Pure asphaltenes are solid, dry black powder and non volatile. Pure resins are heavy liquids or

sticky solids and are as volatile as HCs of the same size.