A Simple Statistical Model for Predicting Crude Oil API and Specific Gravity Values

Abstract

American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity value is the main indicator of crude oil quality and marketing value; hence, it must be simply and accurately determined. Existing crude oil API prediction models are complex and time-consuming because they use lots of parametric properties for predictions. Herein, we propose a simple two-variable (aromatic and naphthene content) statistical model for predicting crude oil API and (specific gravity) SG values. The statistical model in this study was developed using multiple linear regression techniques on about 80 crude oil samples from different locations. The study shows that the developed model in this work could accurately predict crude oil API and specific gravity values with standard errors of 3.14 and 0.012; and correlation matrix of 0.92 and 0.95, respectively. The model could predict crude oil API and specific gravity better than API models in literature by 38% - 62%. The findings in this work provides a simple and fast method of determining crude oil API for crude marketing and inspection.