Designing Drilling Fluids to Combat Circulation Losses for Arctic Environments

Author(s):  
Mesfin Belayneh ◽  
Bernt S. Aadnøy

Drilling fluid plays a key role in an efficient drilling operation to minimize problems such as wellbore collapse, circulation losses and stuck pipe. Well instability problems are costly as they increase the non-productive time and the overall budget (1) (2). Well instability problems controlled by designing appropriate mud density and fluid properties that controls the well. The fracture sealing ability of a drilling fluid is one very important of the drilling mud. This paper presents design of water-based drilling fluids and results from laboratory experiments to quantify the loss circulation performance of drilling fluids. Because it is preferable to use oil-based muds in some well sections, the paper will also include a recent study on how to minimize losses when using oil based muds. Here uses of micro/nanoparticles have shown to reduce filtrate losses and to build barriers that are more efficient during circulation loss events. All the tests presented are at low temperature, which is suitable for Artic environments.


Author(s):  
Petar Mijić ◽  
Nediljka Gaurina-Međimurec ◽  
Borivoje Pašić

About 75% of all formations drilled worldwide are shale formations and 90% of all wellbore instability problems occur in shale formations. This increases the overall cost of drilling. Therefore, drilling through shale formations, which have nanosized pores with nanodarcy permeability still need better solutions since the additives used in the conventional drilling fluids are too large to plug them. One of the solutions to drilling problems can be adjusting drilling fluid properties by adding nanoparticles. Drilling mud with nanoparticles can physically plug nanosized pores in shale formations and thus reduce the shale permeability, which results in reducing the pressure transmission and improving wellbore stability. Furthermore, the drilling fluid with nanoparticles, creates a very thin, low permeability filter cake resulting in the reduction of the filtrate penetration into the shale. This thin filter cake implies high potential for reducing the differential pressure sticking. In addition, borehole problems such as too high drag and torque can be reduced by adding nanoparticles to drilling fluids. This paper presents the results of laboratory examination of the influence of commercially available nanoparticles of SiO2 (dry SiO2 and water-based dispersion of 30 wt% of silica), and TiO2 (water-based dispersion of 40 wt% of titania) in concentrations of 0.5 wt% and 1 wt% on the properties of water-based fluids. Special emphasis is put on the determination of lubricating properties of the water-based drilling fluids. Nanoparticles added to the base mud without any lubricant do not improve its lubricity performance, regardless of their concentrations and type. However, by adding 0.5 wt% SiO2-disp to the base mud with lubricant, its lubricity coefficient is reduced by 4.6%, and by adding 1 wt% TiO2-disp to the base mud with lubricant, its lubricity coefficient is reduced by 14.3%.



Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1644
Author(s):  
Camilo Pedrosa ◽  
Arild Saasen ◽  
Bjørnar Lund ◽  
Jan David Ytrehus

The cuttings transport efficiency of various drilling fluids has been studied in several approaches. This is an important aspect, since hole cleaning is often a bottleneck in well construction. The studies so far have targeted the drilling fluid cuttings’ transport capability through experiments, simulations or field data. Observed differences in the efficiency due to changes in the drilling fluid properties and compositions have been reported but not always fully understood. In this study, the cuttings bed, wetted with a single drilling fluid, was evaluated. The experiments were performed with parallel plates in an Anton Paar Physica 301 rheometer. The results showed systematic differences in the internal friction behaviors between tests of beds with oil-based and beds with water-based fluids. The observations indicated that cutting beds wetted with a polymeric water-based fluid released clusters of particles when external forces overcame the bonding forces and the beds started to break up. Similarly, it was observed that an oil-based fluid wetted bed allowed particles to break free as single particles. These findings may explain the observed differences in previous cutting transport studies.



Author(s):  
Jan David Ytrehus ◽  
Ali Taghipour ◽  
Sneha Sayindla ◽  
Bjørnar Lund ◽  
Benjamin Werner ◽  
...  

One important requirement for a drilling fluid is the ability to transport the cuttings out of the borehole. Improved hole cleaning is a key to solve several challenges in the drilling industry and will allow both longer wells and improved quality of well construction. It has been observed, however, that drilling fluids with similar properties according to the API standard can have significantly different behavior with respect to hole cleaning performance. The reasons for this are not fully understood. This paper presents results from flow loop laboratory tests without and with injected cuttings size particles using a base oil and a commercial oil based drilling fluid. The results demonstrate the importance of the rheological properties of the fluids for the hole cleaning performance. A thorough investigation of the viscoelastic properties of the fluids was performed with a Fann viscometer and a Paar-Physica rheometer, and was used to interpret the results from the flow loop experiments. Improved understanding of the fluid properties relevant to hole cleaning performance will help develop better models of wellbore hydraulics used in planning of well operations. Eventually this may lead to higher ROP with water based drilling fluids as obtained with oil based drilling fluids. This may ease cuttings handling in many operations and thereby significantly reduce the drilling cost using (normally) more environmentally friendly fluids. The experiments have been conducted as part of an industry-sponsored research project where understanding the hole cleaning performance of various oil and water based drilling fluids is the aim. The experiments have been performed under realistic conditions. The flow loop includes a 10 meter long test section with 2″ OD freely rotating drillstring inside a 4″ ID wellbore made of concrete. Sand particles were injected while circulating the drilling fluid through the test section in horizontal position.



2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osei H

High demand for oil and gas has led to exploration of more petroleum resources even at remote areas. The petroleum resources are found in deeper subsurface formations and drilling into such formations requires a well-designed drilling mud with suitable rheological properties in order to avoid or reduce associated drilling problems. This is because rheological properties of drilling muds have considerable effect on the drilling operation and cleaning of the wellbore. Mud engineers therefore use mud additives to influence the properties and functions of the drilling fluid to obtain the desired drilling mud properties especially rheological properties. This study investigated and compared the impact of barite and hematite as weighting agents for water-based drilling muds and their influence on the rheology. Water-based muds of different concentrations of weighting agents (5%, 10%, 15% and 20% of the total weight of the drilling mud) were prepared and their rheological properties determined at an ambient temperature of 24ᵒC to check their impact on drilling operation. The results found hematite to produce higher mud density, plastic viscosity, gel strength and yield point when compared to barite at the same weighting concentrations. The higher performance of the hematite-based muds might be attributed to it having higher specific gravity, better particle distribution and lower particle attrition rate and more importantly being free from contaminants. The water-based muds with hematite will therefore be more promising drilling muds with higher drilling and hole cleaning efficiency than those having barite.



Author(s):  
Bunyami Shafie ◽  
Lee Huei Hong ◽  
Phene Neoh Pei Nee ◽  
Fatin Hana Naning ◽  
Tze Jin Wong ◽  
...  

Drilling mud is a dense, viscous fluid mixture used in oil and gas drilling operations to bring rock cuttings to the earth's surface from the boreholes as well as to lubricate and cool the drill bit. Water-based mud is commonly used due to its relatively inexpensive and easy to dispose of. However, several components and additives in the muds become increasingly cautious and restricted. Starch was introduced as a safe and biodegradable additive into the water-based drilling fluid, in line with an environmental health concern. In this study, the suitability of four local rice flours and their heat moistures derivatives to be incorporated in the formulation of water-based drilling fluid was investigated. They were selected due to their natural amylose contents (waxy, low, intermediate, and high). They were also heat moisture treated to increase their amylose contents. Results showed that the addition of the rice flours into water-based mud significantly reduced the density, viscosity, and filtrate volume. However, the gel strength of the mud was increased. The rice flours, either native or heat moisture treated, could serve as additives to provide a variety of low cost and environmentally friendly drilling fluids to be incorporated and fitted into different drilling activity.



2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 211-230
Author(s):  
Adnan Ibrahim Barodi

Drilling fluid properties and formulation play a fundamental role in drilling operations. The Classical water-based muds prepared from only the Syrian clay and water without any additives((Organic and industrial polymers) are generally poor in performance. Moreover, The high quantity of Syrian clay (120 gr / l) used in preparing drilling fluids. It leads to a decrease in the drilling speed and thus an increase in the time required to complete the drilling of the well. As a result, the total cost of drilling the well increased, as a result of an increase in the concentration of the solid part in the drilling fluid. In this context, our study focuses on the investigation of the improvement in drilling mud   Prepared from the Syrian clay by reducing the clay concentration to (50 gr / L). And compensate for the remaining amount (70 gr / l) of clay by adding (natural and industrial polymers) The rheological properties and filtration are measured at different concentrations of polymers .. In light of the experiments, we determine the polymers' concentrations that gave good results in improving the flow properties and controlling the Filter. It is polymers that have given good results:، HEC، HEC and Xanthan Gum  PAC and HEC، CMCHV، PolyAcryl Amid ، Xanthan Gum .



Fluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Leusheva ◽  
Nataliia Brovkina ◽  
Valentin Morenov

Drilling fluids play an important role in the construction of oil and gas wells. Furthermore, drilling of oil and gas wells at offshore fields is an even more complex task that requires application of specialized drilling muds, which are non-Newtonian and complex fluids. With regard to fluid properties, it is necessary to manage the equivalent circulation density because its high values can lead to fracture in the formation, loss of circulation and wellbore instability. Thus, rheology of the used drilling mud has a significant impact on the equivalent circulation density. The aim of the present research is to develop compositions of drilling muds with a low solids load based on salts of formate acid and improve their rheological parameters for wells with a narrow drilling fluid density range. Partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide of different molecular weights was proposed as a replacement for hydrolized polyacrylamide. The experiment was conducted on a Fann rotary viscometer. The article presents experimentally obtained data of indicators such as plastic viscosity, yield point, nonlinearity index and consistency coefficient. Experimental data were analyzed by the method of approximation. Analysis is performed in order to determine the most suitable rheological model, which describes the investigated fluids’ flow with the least error.



2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 9720-9722

Drilling fluid or mud is essential fluid in drilling operation which has many important properties and one of the important properties is the viscosity of the drilling fluid and the viscosity is further classified as yield viscosity and plastic viscosity which means different in terms of its function. This paper is attempting to show the rheological characteristics of the different samples of the drilling fluid using Xanthan Gum and Physillum husk and different weighting agents Barite and Calcium Carbonate at ambient conditions. The results showed that xanthan gum acts as good viscosifying agent as compared with physillum husk. In addition that, the water based drilling mud with barite which act as weighing agent proved better as compared with calcium carbonate. The following paper will be valuable to the graduates, future graduates and also to the Industry personnel have a basic idea about the rheology and how the parameters related to the rheology are valuable in mud design.



Author(s):  
Jan David Ytrehus ◽  
Ali Taghipour ◽  
Bjørnar Lund ◽  
Benjamin Werner ◽  
Nils Opedal ◽  
...  

One important requirement for a drilling fluid is the ability to transport the cuttings out of the borehole. Improved hole cleaning is a key to solve several challenges in the drilling industry and will allow both longer wells and improved quality of well construction. It has been observed, however, that drilling fluids with similar properties according to the API standard can have significantly different behavior with respect to hole cleaning performance. The reasons for this are not fully understood. This paper presents results from laboratory tests where water based drilling fluids with similar rheological properties according to API measurements have been tested for their hole cleaning capabilities in a full scale flow loop. Thorough investigation of the viscoelastic properties of the fluids were performed with, among other instruments, a Paar-Physica rheometer. Improved understanding of the fluid properties relevant to hole cleaning performance will help develop better models of wellbore hydraulics used in planning of well operations. Eventually this may lead to higher ROP with water based drilling fluids as obtained with oil based drilling fluids. This may ease cuttings handling in many operations and thereby significantly reduce the drilling cost using (normally) more environmentally friendly fluids. The experiments have been conducted as part of an industry-sponsored research project where understanding the hole cleaning performance of various oil and water based drilling fluids is the aim. The experiments have been performed under realistic conditions. The flow loop includes a 12 meter long test section with 2″ OD freely rotating drillstring inside a 4″ ID wellbore made of concrete. Sand particles were injected while circulating the drilling fluid through the test section in horizontal position.



2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
A. D. I. Sulaiman ◽  
M. B. Adamu ◽  
Usman Hassan ◽  
S. M. Aliyu

Progress in drilling engineering demands more sophistication from the drilling mud in order to enhance the usage of drilling fluids, hence numerous additives were introduced, and a simple fluid became a complicated mixture of liquid, solid and chemicals. Some of the challenges with the existing drilling fluid additives has to do with compatibility, degradability, safety, cost, and environmental friendliness. Studies have been carried out on the economic benefits of Cissus Populnea which includes in areas of food, medicine, shelter, and transport but much attention has been paid to its applications in the Oil and Gas industry. This study investigates the rheological properties of Cissus Populnea for application as drilling fluid additive (viscosifier) in Water Based Drilling Mud. Fresh roots, stems and leaves of cissus populnea were sourced from Bayara, Bauchi State. Some liquid exudates of cissus populnea were collected and stored for analysis while some of the samples were dried and grinded in to powdered form. Exudate of the samples were characterized by FTIR, XRD and XRF. Drilling mud was formulated with the samples cisssus populnea and bentonite at different temperatures. The rheology of the formulated drilling mud was investigated and compared with that formulated using bentonite and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). Results from X-ray Fluorescence analysis show that the chemical composition of Cissus populnea stem and root are similar when comparing their major components (In2O3 and CaO), while that of leaf has its major components to be In2O3 and Cl. Therefore, in this research work, experiments were conducted with only stem and leaf since stem and roots have common features. From the results of FTIR spectra, the stem of cissus populnea has an OH peak wavelength of 3487.42 cm-1 while that of leave is 3340.82 cm-1. The diffractogram of the stem of cissus populnea was observed at 2q = 22.67o which is very close to that of CMC (2θ = 20.31o) while the intense peaks of leaf were observed at around 28.65o. Viscosity of cissus populnea was investigated and found to be decreasing with the increase in temperature for stem exudate. While for leaf exudate, the viscosity was rather increasing with the increase in temperature at temperatures below 35 oC and then continue to decrease with the increase in temperature. The outcome of this research has confirmed the applicability of cissus populnea for drilling fluid additives, viscosifier.



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