Investigation of different environmental-friendly waste materials as lost circulation additive in drilling fluids

AbstractDrilling fluid is a very important component to ensure smooth drilling process. Drilling fluid is developed and produced with many additives to fulfill its functions. One of the additives is lost circulation materials (LCMs) that will help to minimize or prevent fluid loss into the formation. This study aims to develop new LCM from agro-waste materials which are orange peel and sunflower seed. The LCMs were prepared in three different sizes: fine, medium and coarse and also with different concentrations: 0.8%, 1.3%, 2.2%, 2.7% and 4%. The performance of the drilling fluid with newly developed LCM was tested in terms of rheological and filtration properties. The results were compared with the commercial LCM that has been used in the industry which is nut plug. The results showed that drilling fluid with finest size and high concentration yielded good filtration control. From these preliminaries result, two best sizes were chosen, combined, mixed and tested. The chosen sizes were fine and medium. This new combination of LCM gave even better results compared to the fine-sized and high-concentration LCM. It can be concluded that to ensure good filtration control, the LCM could be combined together since the combination of different sizes minimized the pores created in the mud cake hence helping to reduce the potential of loss circulation problem.

UTP CRIS Expert