Overview: Drilling and Completion Fluids (November 2006)

Abstract

In reviewing the fluids-related papers to be featured in this issue, I was struck by the wide range of choices that exists for drilling and completion fluids today. We are no longer constrained to the use of a handful of basic water- or oil-based fluids, clear brines, or simple pneumatic fluids to do our job. Likewise, we are no longer limited by a few surface measurements and basic concepts to describe and understand the physical behavior of the fluids that are used. Clearly, this increased selection and our ability to test, predict, monitor, and understand the behavior of all wellbore fluids have contributed greatly to the success of our industry in drilling increasingly complex and challenging wells. Professionals who make decisions about fluids have more challenges than ever before. These challenges include overcoming marketing glitz and information overload to understand when and where true benefits can be derived from use of nonstandard fluids and more-complex-fluid analysis. Normally, I get on my "plastic-viscosity/yield-point" soapbox here, but what comes to mind is that we are challenged to remember and use the basic engineering science behind what we are doing, most of which was described by the previous generation of SPE professionals in the classic papers with paper numbers below 10000. I encourage you to read the summaries and review the list of "additional reading" papers that follow. Then I challenge you to take the next step and read the entire paper for the topic that is of greatest interest to you. And once you have done that, review the references and consider the classic SPE papers that laid the foundation for the work being presented—if you have never read them, do yourself a favor and take the time to do so. Regardless of whether you are evaluating the most-challenging high-cost well to be drilled this year helping to access the next deepwater giant field or a series of assembly-line low-cost wells that help the industry access unconventional resources, knowing your fluids choices and understanding when and where to use them can make the difference between success and failure. Drilling and Completion Fluids additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org SPE 99080 "How To Unify Low-Shear-Rate Rheology and Gel Properties of Drilling Muds: A Transient Rheological and Structural Model for Complex-Well Applications" by B. Herzhaft, Inst. Français du Pétrole, et al. SPE 96342 "Selection and Evaluation Criteria for High-Performance Drilling Fluids" by K. Morton, Chevron Energy Technology Co., et al. SPE 97018 "Evaluation of Equivalent Circulating Density of Drilling Fluids Under High-Pressure/High-Temperature Conditions" by O.O. Harris, SPE, U. of Oklahoma, et al.