Investigating and Enhancing Mud Cake Reduction Using Smart Nano ClayBased WBM

Abstract

Mud cake is the solid particles deposited on the pores of the formation creating a form of barrier when the drilling fluid is forced against the formation under an applied pressure. The mud cake formed along the open hole formation may cause differential pipe sticking and increases torque and drag forces of the drill pipe. This causes drilling operator to stop drilling and perform frequent tripping or over pull to release the stuck pipe. This event may lead to Non-Productive Time (NPT) and increases the operational cost. The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between Nano Clay based water based mud (WBM) with mud cake thickness and comparing it with the conventional clay based mud (WBM). In this research study, we could only managed to get nano clay between 90 nm to 100 nm. Mud cake thickness, filtrate volume and rheology of the drilling fluids parameters are studied. It was found that the mud cake thickness of Nano-WBM using Nano Clay is half compared to base mud using conventional clay. However, the filtrate collected and the rheological properties show an adverse impact of the drilling fluid performance.