Laboratory Evaluation Comparison Study Between the Performance of Fatty Acid Solid Lubricant and Liquid Lubricant

Abstract

High torque and friction factors are major challenges while drilling. Providing lubrication helps in reducing torque and drag and increasing rate of penetration (ROP) in water-based fluids and produced water. The lubricants are inert hence, they do not react with other fluid additives or cuttings and will not affect fluid rheology. All Lubricants in the oil and gas industry are in liquid form and usually used to reduce torque and decrease coefficients of friction, they came in different chemical compositions a toxic lubricant mineral oil and non-toxic vegetable lubricants, and they have many papers talk about how they function as lubricants, but with a new generation of solids lubricants, it will be changing the whole industry. Powdered encapsulated lubricant additive comprises a liquid lubricant blended with an inert solid substrate. The solid lubricant additive compositions thus, obtained are advantageously employed in drilling fluids. Fatty acid solid lubricant is one of the aforementioned powdered lubricants. It is a dry form encapsulated lubricant composed of micronized capsules containing oil that remains held until sufficient operational pressure, friction, or shear break the encapsulation to release the oil on demand. In this paper, we present a testing plan, lab results of fatty acid solid lubricant, compare and contrast results with liquid lubricants that had the same component group in three types of salts (brine) to see the range of efficiency between solid and liquid forms.