EVALUATION OF NANO TECHNOLOGY PERFORMANCE IN OPTIMIZING DRILLING FLUIDS DESIGN FOR HARSH CONDITIONS

Abstract

Oil and gas demand is grown recently which drive exploration and production industry to look for new resources. Accordingly, the new frontier for the oil and gas industries is to drill HPHT wells. Drilling and completing wells in high temperature environments can be very challenging. The challenge and difficulty are commonly faced three principal categories; fluids, mechanical devices and electronics. Drilling fluids selection to meet the anticipated conditions is the key to success of almost drilling operations through reducing the risk of drilling catastrophes such as stuck drill pipe, formation damage, loss of circulation, gas kick, etc. These harsh conditions innately limit the use of conventional drilling fluids and mud properties that varied significantly in this HPHT harsh environment. Actually, case studies were conducted through analyzing the prepared water-based mud (WBM) and oil-based mud (OBM) samples. The samples consisted of WBM blank sample, WBM developed with copolymer, copolymer/CuO nanocomposites and copolymer/GO nanocomposites and same procedures were applied for OBM. The main challenge for such applications is to retain the desired rheological properties of drilling fluids and stabilize fluid loss at elevated temperature and pressures. The results showed great enhancement in rheological, filtration and friction properties of WBM developed with 3.5 Ib/bbl PES copolymer (PIBMA-PEG) that can withstand high temperature beyond〖400〗^⁰ F. On the other hand, prepared nanocomposites showed an adverse effect on mud rheology at high temperature greater than 300⁰F. Neither the copolymer nor its composites helped in enhancing OBM properties at high temperature (>300⁰F). However, the addition of 1 Ib/bbl CuO-NPs enhanced the yield point of OBM significantly at 3500F as compared to the effect of nano graphene oxide (GO) that just showed a slight effect on OBM properties.