Development of a New Temperature-Dependent Viscosity Model for Crude Oils

The objective of this study is to develop a more accurate model for predicting the dynamic viscosity of a wide range of crude oils at different temperatures. The dynamic viscosities of four Kuwaiti crude oils and a Maya heavy crude oil with an API gravity range of 11.3–26.5 were measured over a temperature range of 25–150 °C, and then the obtained data were used to compare and evaluate the six major empirical temperature-dependent viscosity models reported in the literature. According to the temperature-viscosity correlation, a new empirical temperature-dependent viscosity model was first proposed for crude oils. The linear regression analysis and the statistic deviation analysis were conducted in comparison of the new temperature-dependent viscosity model with the six existing models. Deviation of the various models for the five different crude oils was calculated and discussed in detail. The results show that the new model displays the best correlation performance, giving the smallest average relative deviation of 3.0%, in comparison with the six existing models.