The hydrocarbon extraction and exploitation using state-of-the-art modern drilling technologies urge the use of biodegradable, environment-friendly drilling fluid and drilling fluid additives to protect the environment and humanity. As more environmental laws are enacted and new safety rules implemented to oust the usage of toxic chemicals as fluid additives, it becomes inevitable that we re-evaluate our choice of drilling fluid additives. Drilling fluids and its additives play a crucial role in drilling operations as well as project costing; hence, it is needed that we develop cost-effective environment-friendly drilling fluid additives that meet the requirements for smooth functioning in geologically complex scenarios as well as have a minimal ecological impact. The current research work demonstrates key outcomes of investigations carried out on the formulation of a sustainable drilling fluid system, where groundnut husk is used as a fluid loss additive and a rheological modifier having no toxicity and high biodegradability. Cellulose was generated from groundnut husk at two varying particle sizes using mesh analysis, which was then compared with the commercially available PAC at different concentrations to validate its properties as a comparable fluid loss retarder additive as well as a rheological modifier. In the present work, various controlling characteristics of proposed groundnut husk additive are discussed, where comparison at different concentrations with a commercially available additive, PAC, is also validated. The API filtration losses demonstrated by the (63–74) µm and the (250–297) µm proposed additive showed a decrease of 91.88% and 82.31%, respectively, from the base mud at 4% concentration. The proposed husk additives acted as a filtrate retarder additive without much deviation from base rheology and with considerably higher pH than the base mud. This investigation indicates that the proposed fluid loss additive and rheological modifier can minimize the environmental hazards and have proved to be a cost-effective eco-friendly alternative in this challenging phase of the hydrocarbon exploration industry.
The significance of the tracer testing technique is widely accepted in reservoir performance analysis in hydrology as well as in hydrocarbon exploration and production. The subsurface reservoir delineation for hydrocarbon exploration and optimum production is one of the most critical aspects of petroleum system analysis. The quality of the reservoir and its performance prediction require extensive knowledge of qualitative reservoir geology, its depositional environment, facies heterogeneity and engineering properties of subsurface formations. Tracer testing is amongst the few techniques available in the oil and gas (O&G) industry, which stands up to these expectations and is successfully used for quantitative determination and analysis of sub-seismic scale structural and stratigraphic heterogeneities. Tracer testing is also being utilized in determining residual oil saturation (Sor) and lateral correlation of reservoir properties in the subsurface. Apart from the O&G industry, the concentration-based applications of tracer testing have been proved in hydrology, geothermal and medical science. A comprehensive review is presented to explain the application of tracer testing technique to investigate porous media, mainly in O&G industry. The type of tracers used, their selection criteria, concentration, and natural versus gradient and qualitative to a quantitative application are discussed in the current review. Generally, two types of tracers (chemical and radioactive) are preferred in the petroleum industry for gas/fluid flow assessment, waterflood optimization and establishing connectivity between multiple wells. The current paper reviews both types of tracer tests, namely single well and inter well, in detail discussing the objectives, calculations, designing, injection, sampling, laboratory analysis and knowledge integration. The preliminary aim was to provide a review of the tracer testing technique used in reservoir evaluation and well-to-well connectivity analysis.
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