Earth boring – well treating – and oil field chemistry – Earth boring – Contains organic component
Patent
1991-11-15
1993-03-16
Geist, Gary L.
Earth boring, well treating, and oil field chemistry
Earth boring
Contains organic component
507138, 507139, C09K 702
Patent
active
051944227
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention discloses new drilling fluids based on water-based O/W-emulsions and O/W-emulsion drilling muds based thereon, which are distinguished by high ecological acceptability and at the same time good standing and application properties. An important area of use for the new drilling fluid systems is in off-shore wells for the development of petroleum and/or natural gas deposits, the aim of the invention being particularly to make available industrially usable drilling fluids with high ecological acceptability. The use of the new drilling fluid systems admittedly has particular significance in the marine environment, but is not limited thereto. The new mud systems can also be put to quite general use in land-based drilling, i.e. also for the development of petroleum and/or natural gas deposits here. They are, however, new valuable working agents, for example, also in geothermal wells, in water bore-holes, in the drilling of geoscientific bores and in drilling for the mining industry. It is also essentially true here that the associated ecotoxic problems are substantially simplified by the new water-based O/W-drilling fluids selected according to the invention.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Fluid mud systems used in the sinking of rock bores for bringing up the loosened drill cuttings are known to be flowable systems, thickened to a limited extent, which can be assigned to one of the three following classes:
Purely aqueous drilling fluids; drilling mud systems based on oil, which as a rule are used in the form of so-called invert emulsion muds, and represent preparations of the W/O-emulsion type in which the aqueous phase is distributed as a heterogeneous fine dispersion in the continuous oil phase. The third class of the known drilling fluids is composed of water-based O/W-emulsions, i.e. fluid systems which contain a heterogeneous, finely-dispersed oil phase in a continuous aqueous phase. The invention discloses improved systems of this latter type.
The application properties of the drilling fluids of such O/W-emulsion systems take an intermediate position between the purely aqueous systems and the oil-based invert fluids. The advantages, but also the disadvantages, of the purely aqueous systems are connected with the advantages and disadvantages of the oil-based invert-emulsions disclosed hitherto. Detailed information on this subject can be found in the relevant specialist literature, refer, for example, to the text book by George R. Gray and H. C. H. Darley, "Composition and Properties of Oil Well Drilling Fluids", 4th. edition, 1980/1981, Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, and the extensive specialist and patent literature cited therein and to the manual "Applied Drilling Engineering", Adam T. Bourgoyne, Jr. et al., First Printing Society of Petroleum Engineers, Richardson, Tex. (U.S.A.).
One of the main weaknesses of purely water-based drilling mud systems lies in the interaction of water-sensitive, particularly water-swellable, rock and/or salt formations with the aqueous drilling fluid and the secondary effects initiated thereby, in particular bore-hole instability and thickening of the drilling fluid. Many proposals are concerned with the reduction of this range of problems and have, for example, resulted in the development of the so-called inhibitive water-based muds, cf. for example, "Applied Drilling Engineering", loc. cit., Chapter 2, Drilling Fluids, 2.4 and Gray and Darley loc. cit., Chapter 2, in particular the sub-section on pages 50 to 62 (Muds for "Heaving Shale", Muds for Deep Holes, Non-Dispersed Polymer Muds, Inhibited Muds: Potassium Compounds).
In more recent practice, in particular drilling fluids based on oil, which consist of the 3-phase system oil, water and finely particulate solids and are preparations of the W/O-emulsion type, have succeeded in overcoming the difficulties described above. Oil-based drilling fluids were originally based on diesel oil fractions containing aromatics. For detoxification and to reduce the
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Fues Johann F.
Herold Klaus-Peter
Mueller Heinz
von Tapavicza Stephan
Geist Gary L.
Grandmaison Real J.
Henkel Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien
Jaeschke Wayne C.
Szoke Ernest G.
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