Characterization of Filter Cake Generated by Nanoparticle-Based Drilling Fluid for HP/HT Applications

Abstract

As high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) drilling is inherently expensive, drilling fluids and technologies should be carefully selected to successfully handle the associated challenges. Over the past few years, nanoparticles (NPs), among other additives, have been investigated to address these challenges. The objective of this study is to investigate the potential of using ferric oxide NPs on the filter cake properties in downhle drilling environments. Having an efficient filter cake is an important property of the drilling fluid and can affect the success of drilling operations. This research focuses oncharacterizatingthe filter cakes produced by Ca-bentonite-based drilling fluid contains ferric oxide NPs at downhle conditions. A combination of computed-tomography (CT) scan and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) was used in filter cake characterization. The effect of NP concentration, fluid preparation method, and filtration condition were studied. A HP/HT filter press was used to perform the filtration process at conditions up to 350°F and 500 psi. Indiana limestone core disks were used to simulate the filter media. The experimental results showed that the ferric oxide NPs improve the filter cake and filtration properties of Ca-bentonite-based drilling fluid in the presence of polymer and other additives. Low NP concentration is preferred for obtaining a good cake quality with the best characteristics obtained at 0.3–0.5 wt% NPs. Furthermore, this drilling fluid can withstand conditions up to 500 psi and 350°F. Cake properties of 0.151 in. thickness, 6.9 ml filtrate volume, and 0.428 µd permeability was obtained at such conditions. The addition of NPs to the drilling fluid improved the filter cake properties under both static and dynamic filtration. SEM-EDS analysis confirmed the efficiency of using NPs to form a smoother/less porous filter cake morphology. Moreover, sonication for one hour and hydration for 16 hours are recommendedfor better preparation of these fluids. This research provides an experimental evaluation of using ferric oxide NPs with Ca-bentonite-based drilling fluid to produce high-quality filter cake at downhole conditions. The characteristics of the filter cake gererated confirmed the efficiency of such fluids.

Nano-Based Drilling Fluids: A Review

“…At the concentration of 0.5 wt %, a smoother filter cake morphology with less agglomeration was observed from SEM images. The filter cakes were further examined with Computed-Tomography (CT) scans and SEM analysis and the results were reported in another study [15]. The authors concluded that addition of Fe 2 O 3 NP to the drilling fluids improved the filter cake characteristics under both static and dynamic filtration conditions.…”

A comprehensive modeling in predicting the effect of various nanoparticles on filtration volume of water-based drilling fluids

“…By comparing the curves before and after adding nanoparticles, it could be seen that the filtration volume decreases by increasing nanoparticles. There is also a range that nanoparticles could do their best in lowering the filtration volume that is stated in the literature (Mahmoud et al 2017). The relative deviation that measures the difference between predicted and actual data gives an illustrative view about the adjacency of actual and model target.…”

“…The utilized nanoparticles and their respective studies that are contributed in the data bank are SiO 2 (Parizad et al 2018), Fe 2 O 3 (Vryzas et al 2015;Mahmoud et al 2017 . The experimental data in these studies have included the impact of nanoparticle type, nanoparticle concentration (wt%), KCl salt concentration (wt%), temperature (°F), pressure (psi), RPM (round/min), and time (s) on filtration volume (ml) of water-based drilling fluid.…”

“…Also, the effects of nanoparticles along with the polymers, surfactants, and polymer-surfactant are dealt with in some other works (Fakoya and Shah 2018;Srivatsa and Ziaja 2011;Ahmad et al 2017). The above investigations have showed that the addition of nanoparticles could improve the filtration properties of drilling fluid (Mahmoud et al 2016(Mahmoud et al , 2017(Mahmoud et al , 2018Salih and Bilgesu 2017;Vryzas et al 2015Vryzas et al , 2016Vryzas et al , 2018Barry et al 2015;Parizad et al 2018;Smith et al 2018;Salih et al 2016;Yusof and Hanafi 2015;Jung et al 2011;Shakib et al 2016;Parizad and Shahbazi 2016) and consequently could mitigate the formation damage.…”

“…The effect of silica (SiO 2 ) (Mahmoud et al 2016(Mahmoud et al , 2018Salih and Bilgesu 2017;Parizad et al 2018;Smith et al 2018;Salih et al 2016;Vryzas et al 2015;Yusof and Hanafi 2015), ferric oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ) (Mahmoud et al 2016(Mahmoud et al , 2017(Mahmoud et al , 2018Vryzas et al 2015;Jung et al 2011;Shakib et al 2016) (Vryzas et al 2016(Vryzas et al , 2018, and clay minerals (Shakib et al 2016;Needaa et al 2016) nanoparticles on filtration properties of water-based drilling fluid is investigated. The other types of nanoparticles as multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) (Ismail et al 2014(Ismail et al , 2016, iron oxide/clay hybrid (ICH) (Barry et al 2015), aluminosilicate/clay hybrid (ASCH) (Barry et al 2015), titanium oxide/polyacrylamide nanocomposite (Sadeghalvaad and Sabbaghi 2015), clay/silica nanocomposite (Cheraghian et al 2018), nano-sized layered magnesium aluminum silicate (MAS) (Wang et al 2018) are also utilized for this purpose.…”