An Overview of the Common Water-Based Formulations Used for Drilling Onshore Gas Wells in the Middle East
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RESEARCH ARTICLE-PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
An Overview of the Common Water-Based Formulations Used for Drilling Onshore Gas Wells in the Middle East Ashraf Ahmed1 · Ahmed Alsaihati1 · Salaheldin Elkatatny1 Received: 20 January 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2020
Abstract The proper selection of drilling fluids formulations and its treatment has always been a challenge and requires a great effort to ensure optimum drilling performance. The objective of this paper is to assist the mud engineer in selecting the water-based drilling fluid formulations that are best suited for a certain application. To achieve this target, the field practices were combined with the literature to study the most practiced water-based drilling fluid recipes used for onshore gas applications in the Middle East (i.e., spud mud, high-bentonite spud mud, salt/polymer mud, and high-overbalanced mud). From both field practices and deep literature review, it is recommended that both spud mud and high-bentonite spud mud be prepared and pre-hydrated for 4–6 h before a well spud. Also, it is important to add detergents with high-viscosity sweeps to avoid the bit balling and maintain the gel strength. While for salt/polymer mud, the regular addition of sodium sulfite is necessary for polymers stabilization, and the efficient solids control equipment performance is essential. To avoid the solids sagging issues associated with drilling high-pressure high-temperature deep gas reservoirs, it is recommended to either uses sag resistance materials, micronized weighting materials, or a combination of different weighting materials. The high-overbalanced mud is the most effective and efficient type when drilling a combination of natural fractured depleted gas reservoirs with high-pressure gas reservoirs. Keywords Water-based · Drilling fluids · Onshore drilling · Gas wells · Middle East
Abbreviations ALAP bbl BHT gpm HPHT HPWBM LSYP MBT PAC
B
As low as possible Barrel Bottom-hole temperature Gallon per minute High pressure high temperature High-performance water-based mud Low-shear yield point Methylene blue test Polyanionic cellulose
Pound per cubic feet Partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide Permeability plugging test Particle size distribution Plastic viscosity Rate of penetration Water-based drilling fluid Xanthan gum Yield point
Salaheldin Elkatatny [email protected]
1 Introduction
Ashraf Ahmed [email protected]
Drilling fluids have a crucial continued role in drilling a successful well. They are designed to perform a variety of important functions at once. These functions are mainly controlling of subsurface pressures, carrying out and suspension of drill cuttings, maintaining of wellbore stability, minimizing formation damage, cooling and lubricating of the drill string and drill bit, sealing of permeable formations, trans-
Ahmed Alsaihati [email protected] 1
pcf PHPA PPT PSD PV ROP WBDF XC YP
Department of Petroleum Engineering, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, Ki
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