With the increased attention toward nanotechnology and their innovative use for different industries including but not limited to food, biomedical, electronics, materials, etc, the application of nanotechnology or nanoparticles in the oil and gas industry is a subject undergoing intense study by major oil companies, which is reflected through the huge amount of funds invested on the research and development, with respect to the nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has been recently investigated extensively for different applications in the oil and gas industry such as drilling fluids and enhanced oil recovery in addition to other applications including cementing and well stimulation. In this paper, comprehensive literature was conducted to review the different applications of nanotechnology in the oil and gas industry. A summary of all nanoparticles used along with a detailed analysis of their performance in improving the targeted parameters is comprehensively presented. The main objective of this review was to provide a comprehensive summary of the different successful applications of nanotechnology and its associated challenges, which could be very helpful for future researches and applications.
With the increase in the environmental awareness across the oil and gas industry along with the strict environmental regulations related to drilling waste management, different practices have been applied to reduce the impact of drilling waste on the environment such as slim-hole drilling, effective solid control equipment, and environmental friendly drilling fluid additives. The main objective of these techniques is to reduce the volume of the disposed contaminated drill cuttings, therefore, reducing both impact on the environment and the cost related to drilling waste handling. This paper investigates the feasibility of using bio-degradable waste as an environmental friendly drilling fluid additives. A comprehensive experimental evaluation of different bio-degradable waste materials has been carried out to investigate their effectiveness in improving the different properties of water-based drilling fluids. These waste materials, which were prepared in-house, include but not limited to grass, corncobs, sugar cane, pomegranate peel, soya bean peel, etc. The additives were evaluated at different concentrations and mixtures and the various drilling fluids properties were measured, such as filtration, pH, and rheological properties. The filtration properties were evaluated using the standard low pressure low temperature API filter press. The results showed that some materials such as soya bean peel powder reduced the fluid loss up to 60% and improved the yield point and the gel strength up to 330 % and 640% with minor to no effect on the plastic viscosity, suggesting the applicability of using both additives as a rheology modifier and a filtration control agent. Other materials such as henna and tamarind gum outer reduced the pH dramatically, suggesting their applicability in being used as pH control agents, especially when drilling through cement. These promising results showed a good potential for these environmental friendly drilling fluid additives (EFDFA) that were generated from waste material to be used as an alternative for some of the toxic materials currently used in the industry. Using these additives, will contribute towards reducing both; the impact on the environment as well as the overall cost of drilling fluids and drilling waste handling.
Extended reach (ERD) wells with a horizontal and highly deviated section are widely applied in the oil and gas industry because they provide higher drainage area than vertical wells; and hence, increase the productivity or injectivity of the well. Among many issues encountered in a complex well trajectory, poor hole cleaning is the most common problem, which occurs mainly in the deviated and horizontal section of oil and gas wells. There are significant parameters that have a serious impact on hole cleaning performance in high-angle and horizontal sections. These include flow rate, rheology and density of the drilling fluid, drillstring eccentricity, pipe rotation, and cuttings size. It has been recognized that the action of most of these parameters to transport drilled cuttings is constantly a point of controversy among oilfield engineers. In the present study, extensive experiments were conducted in an advanced purpose-built flow rig to identify the main parameters affecting on circulate the cuttings out of the test section in a horizontal position. The flow-loop simulator has been designed to allow easy variation of operational parameters in terms of flow rate, mud density, drillstring eccentricity, pipe rotation, and cuttings size. In addition, the study covers the impacts of laminar, transition, and turbulent flow regimes. The goal of such variation in the operational conditions is to simulate real field situations. The results have shown that drill string rotation and flow rate were the operational parameters with the highest positive influence on the cuttings transports process. In contrast, drill pipe eccentricity has a negative influence on cuttings removal efficiency. The cuttings transportation performance is further improved by pipe rotation at different levels of eccentricity, especially at fully eccentric annuli. It was also shown that larger cuttings appeared to be easier to remove in a horizontal annulus than smaller ones. The experimental results would provide a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between drilling operation parameters and hole cleaning efficiency in ERD operations. This will help the drilling teams to realize what action is better to take for efficient cutting transportation.
Nanoparticles (NPs) have been recently used for different application in the oil and gas industry. Nanoparticles have proven their effectiveness for different applications including; drilling fluids, wellbore strengthening, and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In this paper, different types of nanoparticles including Aluminum Oxide, Copper Oxide, and Magnesium Oxide were evaluated at two different concentrations. The main objective of this research is to investigate the effect of adding nanoparticles on the rheological properties of water-based drilling fluid. A simple 7% bentonite water-based mud was used in this study as a reference point. The rheological properties including plastic viscosity, yield point, and gel strength were evaluated at both; standard test temperature of 120°F and room temperature to understand the effect of nanoparticles on the rheological properties. In addition, the filtration characteristics were investigated using both; the standard API filter press at low-pressure low-temperature (LPLT) as well as the high-pressure-high- temperature (HPHT) filter press at 500 psi and 250°F. The results showed that plastic viscosity was reduced by 50% when NPs were added compared to the reference point. The yield point was improved by 84%, 121%, and 231% for 0.5%Vol Copper Oxide, Aluminum Oxide, and Magnesium Oxide, respectively. In addition, the 10 seconds gel strength was increased up to 95%. A reduction in the fluid loss up to 30% was observed at LPLT conditions. However, the filtration characteristics were negatively affected at HPHT. Based on the results, there is a good potential for using the above-mentioned nanoparticles to improve the rheological properties, especially the low-end rheology while maintaining low plastic viscosities, which in turns results in a better hole cleaning and more control over the equivalent circulation density.
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