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Organic deposition has been shown to be a major problem associated with oil recovery by gas flooding. Industry is lookingfor ways of controllingorganicdepositionand economicmethods that can remedy the problem. A predictivetechniqueis crucialto the solutionof this problem, and this research projectwas designed to focus on the developmentof a predictivetechnique. A thermodynamicmodel has been developed to describe the effects of temperature, pressure,and compositionon asphaltene precipitation. The model employes a polymer solutiontheory for asphaltene-oil solution and treated asphaltene as a polydispersedmedium. The proposed model combines regular solutiontheory with Flory-Hugginspolymer solutionstheory to predictmaximumvolumefractionsof asphaltenedissolvedin oil. The model requires evaluationof vapor-liquidequilibria,first usingan equationof state followedby calculationsof asphaltene solubilityin the liquid-phase. A state-of-the-arttechnique for C7+ fraction characterizationwas employed in developingthis model. The preliminarymodeldeveloped in this work was able to predict qualitativelythe trends of the effects of temperature, pressure, and composition.

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