Barite is one of the most common weighting materials used in drilling fluid for deep oil and gas wells. Consequently, the main source of solids building the filter cake is the weighting material used in drilling fluids ‘Barite particles’. Barite is insoluble in water and acids such as HCl, formic, citric, and acetic acids, as well as the barite has low solubility in chelating agent such as Ethylene Diamine Tetra Acetic Acid (EDTA).
The present study introduces a new formulation to dissolve the barite filter cake using converters and catalysts. Barite can be converted to barium carbonate at high pH medium using combination of potassium hydroxide (KOH) and potassium carbonate (K2CO3) solution. Then HCl acid can be used to dissolve the barium carbonate. Another solution is to use high pH EDTA chelating agent and potassium carbonate as a catalyst/converter in one step. The removal formulation also contains polymer breaker (oxidizers). The three components of the new formulation are compatible and stable up to 300°F. Solubility tests were conducted using industrial barite particles with size ranged from 30 to 60 micron. The solubility experiments were carried at 300°F for 24 hours. Different concentrations of catalyst were added to select the optimum concentration. The designed formulation was examined to remove filter cake formed by Barite drilling fluid using High Pressure High Temperature cell (HPHT).
The result of this study showed that the barite removal efficiency of new formulation reached to 87 % in water base mud and 83 % in oil base mud. The solubility test results presented that the solubility of barite particles in 0.6M EDTA was 62 % in 24 hours at 300°F. Adding potassium carbonate catalyst to the 0.6M EDTA solution the increased the solubility of barite to 90 wt. % in 24 hours. The use of converting agents increased the barite solubility from62% to 90% in EDTA. The EDTA was compatible with the polymer breaker (oxidizer) so the filter cake removal will be in single stage. The oxidizer concentration used was 10 wt%, potassium carbonate concentration was 10 wt% and EDTA concentration was 0.6M. The new formulation achieved 85% filter cake removal in both oil-based and water-based drilling fluids. In oil base mud a water wetting surfactant, mutual solvent, and emulsifier should be added to the formulation to remove the oil. In this study, two solutions were proposed to remove the barite filter cake and barite scale from oil and gas wells at different conditions. The first one is by using HCl acid after converting the barium sulfate to barium carbonate using high pH medium such as KOH and K2CO3. Then HCl can easily remove the barium carbonate. The second method is to create the high pH medium by using the removal fluid itself which is EDTA chelating agent in addition to potassium carbonate as converter.
