SPE-xxxx-MS Development of Environmental Friendly Drilling Fluid Additives. Authors; Kholood Hamad, Al-Anoud Al-Aid, and Ghanima AlDhufairi, The Australian College of Kuwait.
Copyright 2018, Society of Petroleum Engineers This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Conference on Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility held in Abu Dhabi, UAE,16-18 April 2018. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.
Abstract Drilling fluid is an essential part of the drilling operation, it is more like the blood in our veins, it represents (15-20%) of the total cost of well drilling, it is very difficult to get standard drilling fluid with standard additives, since each well needs a specific drilling fluid, depending on well condition such as; pressure, formation type, size of the hole etc, with the increase in environmental regulations and laws against the deposition of drilling fluids specially oil based mud, led to the need of drilling companies to create an outstanding drilling mud with a little or no odorous content, which is basically a biodegradable and environmentally friendly drilling fluid with organic additives that manipulate the rheological properties of the mud, and demonstrate no health hazard behavior on the workers in the oilfield as well as the environment surrounding the well. This study emphasis on the use of bio degradable organic waste such as peelings, as an additives for the drilling fluid, an intensive experimental evaluation of bio degradable environmentally friendly additives were conducted in this paper to examine their feasibility in water based mud, these additives were prepared in house, include Avocado peelings, A mix of fish crab shrimp peelings and scales, and the last additive was a mixture of onion and eggplant peelings, these additives were evaluated at four different concentrations, measuring different properties of the mud, Rheological properties such as; yield point, plastic viscosity and gel strength, filtration loss using low pressure API filter press, and mud cake thickness neglecting the quality of the mud cake, focusing only on the thickness of the mud cake. The results showed some encouraging potential drilling fluid additive for Avocado peelings 0.714g concentration, which decreased the fluid loss up to 42.2% and gave optimum rheology of yield point and gel strength and the fluid loss can be adjusted by adding bridging materials such as calcium carbonate, and a minor effect on the plastic viscosity which increased due to the solid content added to the mud, Avocado peelings can be LCM which is lost circulation material whereas other additives such as Eggplant and onion peelings decreased the PH dramatically which can be used as alkalinity control agent same as Citric acid which is an organic acid used nowadays to reduce the PH of drilling fluids. These additives that are demonstrated in this paper showed some promising results to replace toxic chemical additives to reduce the pollution of the formation, and the harmful deposition of the mud, also it is cost effective, it will cost maybe 6 times less than the chemical additives. Background Drilling fluid also called drilling mud, it is used to assist the drilling of boreholes into the formation