Formation Damage Avoidance by Reducing Invasion with Sodium Silicate-Modified Water-Based Drilling Fluid

Salaheldin Elkatatny, Tural Jafarov, Abdulaziz Al-Majed and Mohamed Mahmoud
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Salaheldin Elkatatny: College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Tural Jafarov: College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz Al-Majed: College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed Mahmoud: College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-12

Abstract: Drilling multilateral and horizontal wells through tight gas reservoirs is a very difficult task. The drilling fluid should be designed to reduce both fluid and solid invasion into the tight formation to avoid formation damage by aqueous phase trapping. The objective of this paper is to assess the effect of sodium silicate on the drilling fluid properties such as rheological and filtration properties. Rheological properties (RPs) were measured at different temperatures while the filtration test was performed at 300 °F and 300 psi differential pressure. A retained permeability calculation was determined to confirm the prevention of solid invasion. The rheological properties results confirmed that the optimal concentration of sodium silicate (SS) was 0.075 wt.% and at the same time, the temperature has no effect on the SS optimum concentration. Using 0.075 wt.% of SS reduced the filtrate volume by 53% and decreased the filter cake thickness by 65%. After mechanical removal of the filter cake, the return permeability of the tight sandstone core was 100% confirming the prevention of solid invasion. The computer tomography (CT) scanner showed that the CT number before and after the filtration test was very close (almost the same) indicating zero solid invasion and prevention of the formation damage.

Keywords: formation damage; solid invasion; water-based; drilling fluid; tight reservoirs; sodium silicate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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