The focus of this research is to study the influence of SARA (saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes) fraction on fouling tendencies for four different types of sweet crude oils obtained from a local Malaysian refinery. In view of the great need to improve the energy efficiency of the refining processes and to reduce maintenance cost, crude oil fouling has been the subject of intense research in recent years. A combination of ASTM D3279 and anin-house method using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was established for SARA quantification. The components were then related to the Colloidal Instability Index (CII), ratios of resins to asphaltenes (R:A), calculated from the SARA values and related to the Solubility Number, SBN, for each of crude oil. These parameters can be used to mitigate crude oil fouling. A good correlation between CII and SBN was observed. © 2012 Asian Network for Scientific Information.