Slurry is a mixture of solids and liquid. A sludge denotes a mud or a concentrated slurry having a considerable amount of fine material that imparts high viscosity. Solids transport in multiphase systems is organised under the umbrella of “flow assurance”. Unlike issues such as waxes and hydrates, solids transport has received relatively little interest to date; this is especially true for solids transport in high-viscosity fluids. Operators are likely to face sand production problems at some time during crude oil production from a reservoir. Sand deposited on the bottom of the pipe will restrict production capacity and incur additional pressure losses. Unblocking a pipeline is not easy and a very expensive exercise. The understanding of sand behaviour/transport of sand in a single or multiphase pipeline and the ability to predict accumulation are vitally important to the oil and gas producing companies to design and operate a pipeline without the formation of sand beds. Four different flow conditions can be encountered in a horizontal or nearly horizontal pipeline. These are homogeneous flow, heterogeneous flow, intermediate regime, and saltation regime. Depending upon the size distribution of solids, slurry concentration, and interaction between solids and liquid, the slurry may have Newtonian or non-Newtonian flow properties. Production of slurry (Oil/ Sand) requires heating the reservoir to several degrees of magnitude to reduce the viscosity of the slurry. Characterization of viscosity property of this fluid is necessary for the designing and optimization of recovery methods. Laboratory investigation was conducted to determine the effect of sand characteristics on oil viscosity. Different variables were tested, all variables except grain size, grain concentration were kept constant during the experiments. To achieve the targets mentioned above, preliminary experiments were conducted to determine characterization of sand and oil. The main results of this study showed that sand grain size have a measurable effect on oil viscosity. Another observation was that there is a point of the sand concentration has significant effect on oil’s viscosity. Which agrees with published correlations related to suspension particle.

The major elements of geochemistry and compaction characteristics of lateritic soils in Okpanam area, located in the Anambra Basin were investigated. This was with a view to determine the silica sesquioxide ratio and assess the suitability of the lateritic soils as a highway sub-base and sub-grade materials. Bulk samples of soil were collected from two separate horizons – A and B at depths of 1.38m and 3.39m in a burrow pit. The major elements geochemical analysis was carried out by means of Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). The geotechnical analysis – compaction, was executed by following the modified AASHTO test (T-180). The amount of total irons in terms of iron III oxide ranged from 6.07% - 7.22%. Silica – sesquioxide of iron and aluminium molar ratios were between 1.9 and 1.96. Compaction characteristics values for this area varied with sampling depth, with an average Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) range of 11.10% to 9.30% and an average Maximum Dry Density (MDD) range of 2.00g/cm3 to 2.06g/cm3. With these values, the soils can be compacted at specific optimum moisture contents in order to ensure close packing of the soil particles under compaction energy, thus ensuring their subsequent use as sub-base and sub-grade highway construction materials.