Polypropylene beads in water-based mud for cuttings transportation improvement

Abstract

Good wellbore cleaning is highly essential to cut off unnecessary spending due to related problems in drilling operations. Many new technologies have been introduced to address the poor wellbore cleaning issues. In this study, the experimental investigation focuses on the use of polypropylene-based polymer beads as a mechanism to enhance cuttings transportation in water-based mud. The primary objective of the experimental investigation is to observe the performance of the polymer beads in lifting the different sizes of drilled cuttings in water-based mud. Six different sizes of drilled cuttings, ranging from 0.50 to 3.34 mm, were used and the lifting performances were done at five different angles, i.e., 0° (vertical), 30°, 60°, 75°, and 90° (horizontal). From 250 conducted tests, the experimental results showed that the cuttings transport efficiency with the presence of polypropylene beads for small cuttings in basic water-based mud improved by 6-8 % for hole angles less than 30° and 4 % between angles of 60°-90°. Drilling mud with polymer beads transported smaller cuttings more efficiently compared to larger cuttings. Despite a relatively low recovery at highly deviated angles, the use of polymer beads has shown improvements in cuttings transportation. This approach might be suitable to transport smaller cuttings to the surface in directional wells.