Cooperative Research—A Route To Reduce the Environmental Impact of Drilling Fluids

Abstract

Summary Increasing environmental constraints on use of oil-based drilling fluids have fluids have prompted close cooperation between operators and service companies to maintain the technical performance of drilling fluids while reducing oil discharge. This paper describes how Amerada Hess Ltd. (AHL) and Intl. Drilling Fluids Ltd. (IDF) cooperated by extending laboratory developments into controlled field trials and how feedback from the field has allowed rapid progress toward performance and ecological goals. We achieved progress toward performance and ecological goals. We achieved success through two developments. First, as a result of a jointly funded research project, we developed a novel, oil-free, highly inhibitive water-based drilling fluid. The inhibition offered by this fluid approaches that offered by oil-based fluids. Second, we developed invert-emulsion and direct-emulsion fluids with low oil/water ratios for low oil-on-cuttings applications. The cooperative process improved the technical performance of these fluids demonstrably and reduced the oil on cuttings.