Increasing the Environmental Friendly of Process Fluids Used for Well Drilling

Abstract

An important aspect of hydrocarbon drilling is the use of drilling fluids that remove cuttings and stabilize the wellbore, providing better filtration. The properties of drilling fluids are essential to the success of any drilling operation. Fluids were originally developed to enable and cost effectively rotary drilling in subterranean formations. In addition, drilling fluids were designed to form a filter cake, which was primarily designed to reduce filtrate loss to the formation, was thin, and retained the drilling fluid in the wellbore. One of the most important functions of drilling fluids is to minimize the amount of drilling fluid filtrate entering a hydrocarbon containing formation, which can cause damage to the formation due to changes in rock wettability, fines migration, mud plugging with solids, and formation water incompatibility. To stabilize these properties, a number of additives are used in drilling fluids to ensure satisfactory rheological and filtration properties of the fluid. However, the commonly used additives are hazardous to the environment: when drilling fluids are disposed of after drilling operations, they, together with drill cuttings and additives, are discharged into water bodies and cause unwanted pollution. Therefore, these additives should be replaced with additives that are environmentally friendly and provide superior performance. In this regard, biodegradable additives are needed for future research. The review article presents an investigation into the role of various biowastes as potential additives for use in water-based drilling fluids. The use of waste-derived nanomaterial was considered, and rheological and filtration studies of water-based drilling fluids were carried out to evaluate the effect of waste additives on the performance of drilling fluids.