Agro-Waste as Fluid Loss Control in Oil and Gas Drilling Fluids: An Experimental Study

Expensive chemical additives for controlling properties of water /oil-based drilling fluids are used in drilling of oil/gas wells. In addition to many advantages, these chemical additives have some huge drawbacks as environment hazardous. Due to the global concern about the environment, most industries are interested in using environmental friendly and cheap materials such as agro-wastes. Iran has ۲۸th global place in production of rice in the year ۲۰۲۰ which produce about ۳ million tons rice husk per a year. Using this material instead of common chemical additives, the cost of drilling, environment hazardous and rig’s personnel safety threat will decrease significantly. This paper compares the effect of rice husk natural agro-waste and chemical additive on controlling fluid loss of water-based drilling fluid. The results represent that the natural agro-waste material is successfully effective in controlling the fluid loss in comparison to other chemical additive.

Keywords:

Rice husk , Drilling fluid , Filtration