Author : Habibullah Sargani, Dr. Abdul Haque Tunio and M. Zubair Hingoro

Now a days environmental regulation agencies become highly vocal on environmental issues, due to that petroleum industry especially drilling companies wants all operations safe, secure, & within the regulation limits set by these agencies. On the basis of above aspect, the drilling operations could be friendly to environment with the usage of environment friendly materials i.e. drilling fluid & cement slurry during drilling & completion activities. This study incorporates the investigation carried out regarding the prospective use of biodiesel (vegetable oils) in oil based mud formulation. The vegetable seed oil (groundnut, & soybean) was used as feedstock for biodiesel preparation by transestrification process and biodiesel was tested for physicochemical properties and compared with the standard requirements needed for base oil in drilling fluid formulation. Results show that the biodiesel met the requirements and can be used as base oil. Then both biodiesels were utilized for oil based mud preparation and formulation carried out at oil/water ratios of 60/40, 70/30, 80/20, & 90/10 and with common additives like bentonite, barite, emulsifiers etc. at laboratory scale. Then mud samples were investigated for rheological properties at normal temperature and different mud properties such as mud density, pH, and emulsion stability were determined for all the samples. Further results of mud samples were evaluated for performance in terms of cutting carrying capacity (CCI) as a hole cleaning efficiency and rheology was compared with literature and API standards of oil based mud to find out the applicability of these parameters for drilling activities and their attributes as friendly to the environment. The results showed that both biodiesel (groundnut & soybean) based mud have the highest viscosity which indicates higher lubricity and suspension of particles during flow as well as it would prevent mud losses. The overall investigation results indicate that both biodiesel based muds possess a chance for viable alternative environmentally & technically, as one of the solution to environmental problem associated with the conventional diesel oil based during drilling operations. The study also serves as a potential alternative to diesel based muds.

Keywords: Biodiesel based mud, Oil water ratio, Water in oil, Rheology, Investigation.

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.10, No.1 (Jan/Feb 2020)