Question

Drilling course.

List the advantages obtained by adding weighting material to mud?.

Answer 1

Drilling fluid is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also used for much simpler boreholes, such as water wells. Liquid drilling fluid is often called drilling mud.

In drilling operations, solid weighting materials are commonly added to the drilling fluid to give sufficient density to the fluid to hinder inflow of oil or gas into the wellbore from the down-hole formation.

Different weighting material like calcium carbonate , hematite , barite etc are used and each weighting material has in own advantages & significance.

CALCIUM CARBONATE is Acid souble weight material.It is used to prevent fluid invasion of permeable zones, and to prevent loss of circulation during drilling, workover, and completion activities.

HEMATITE is for extremely high density mud. It is used to obtain mud weights in excess of 20.0 PPG in water based drilling fluids, 19.0 PPG in oil based drilling fluids or any time that exceptional control is required of solids percentage for rheology control.

BARITE is the most used weighting material, has a density of 4.1. It is used for increasing the density of fresh water, salt water , and oil based muds.