Drilling Fluids / Additives

Drilling fluids are used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. The application of drilling could be to extract oil and gas from beneath the earth or simply drilling water well. There are three main categories of drilling fluids. Water based fluid, oil based fluids and synthetic based fluids.

Each of these drilling fluids has its own advantages and disadvantages, however, three key factors usually determine the type of fluid selected for a specific well are:

• Cost
• Technical performance
• Environmental impact

Water based drilling fluids are used worldwide. Depending on the projected well conditions base fluid may be fresh water, seawater, brine, saturated brine, or formate brine. Water based fluids are fall in to two categories; nondispersed and dispersed. Water based drilling fluids are most preferred worldwide due to its low cost compare to the two other categories as well as its low environmental impact. Water based drilling fluids limitations are as follow:

• Formation clays that react, swell, or slough after exposure to WBFs
• Increasing downhole temperatures
• Contaminants
• Stuck pipe and torque and drag

These limitations in 1950-1960 lead to creation of oil based drilling fluids to address these critical issues. Oil based fluids in use today are formulated with diesel, mineral oil, or low-toxicity linear olefins and paraffin. As the demand for oil and gas grow hence, more drilling resulted in arising environmental issues worldwide.

As a result, Synthetic-based fluids were developed out of an increasing desire to reduce the environmental impact of offshore drilling operations, but without sacrificing the cost-effectiveness of oil-based systems.

What to expect from drilling fluid in oil and gas industry

Once the drilling begins, removing cuttings and material from the borehole become an issue. Drilling fluids must carry the drilled material to the ground surface either by viscosity or velocity. Further, as drilling continues drill bit temperature is raising because of friction generated during the drilling process. Thereby, drilling fluid need to pass by the drill bit and must have the capacity to absorb heat and carry the same up the borehole.

During the drilling of well, as time passes material and cuttings will stick to drill bits such as clay particles. This phenomenon will result in inefficiency in drilling and waste of time and money. Therefore, cleaning the drill bit is vital. Drilling fluid exits the bit jets, the fluid’s velocity removes material from the bit teeth and the cuttings from the bit formation interface. This prevents the re-cut or re-ground.

As mentioned above, as the time passes cuttings, clays and other material will deposited on the borehole wall. This will result in creation and formation of a barrier. Once the barrier forms it will limit the amount of drilling fluids which can penetrate the formation.

In oil and gas field this phenomenon known as filter cake. Filter cake is vital factor of drilling fluid as it is directly linked to the formation stability and additionally, well development time is reduced if fluid loss to the formation is limited and controlled.

Another aspect of drilling fluid is its ability to prevent borehole from collapsing. This can be achieved by increasing the drilling fluids weight to surpass the formation pressure. Finally, drilling fluid’s gel strength must be at a level to keep the cuttings and drilled material in suspension form if there is lack of drilling fluid velocity.

lubricant Khavaran Paraffin

Khavaran Paraffin offers a range of chemical products formulated to reduce the coefficient of friction (COF) of drilling fluids, helping you minimize torque and drag, reduce stuck pipe risk, and increase ROP.

This lubricant can be used in WBM. SBM and OBM drilling fluid system

Reduces torque, drag and differential sticking potential.
Does not foam, grease, or emulsify in high-pH silicate environments.
Compatibility with all type of drilling fluid systems (WBM, OBM, SBM).
Advantageous in extended-reach, deviated, and horizontal wells.
Lowering the filtercake thickness, reducing the COF of the filtercake, and minimizing the yield strength of the cake.
Minimizes bit balling.
Specifically designed for use in freshwater, seawater, and brine applications.