GREEN LOST CIRCULATION MATERIAL DERIVED FROM ORANGE PEEL WASTE

The project is mainly about developing Green Lost Circulation Material (LCM)
derived from orange peel waste. LCM is one of prominent additive in a drilling fluid.
It functions to seal off fractures, micro-fractures and pore throats in order to stop
severe mud loss and overall filtration losses into fonnation. Without LCM drilling
fluid will be lost into the fonnation, thus increase drilling cost. Contemporary LCM
made from, shredded paper, mica, wood fiber, nut hull, cellophane and etc. Some of
this material can be toxic to environment and take a hundred years to be disposed.
Therefore, there is a need to develop an environmental friendly lost circulation
material. For this project, an orange peel waste has been chosen to be a candidate for
lost circulation material. The orange peel waste is processes and blended into three
sizes, which are coarse, medium and fine powder. Then, each of the size is added
into the mud using five different concentration (3 lb/bbl, 5 lb/bbl, 8 lb/bbl, I 0 lb/bbl
and 15 lb/bbl) and tested for rheological properties, API filtration loss and density.
The comparison is made based on the orange peel size and concentration. Two
contemporary LCM has been chosen as a comparison with orange peel LCM which
is nut plug and corn cob. The procedures for all the experiment are developed based
on API 13A and API 13B specification.