ETRO as a New Oil-Based Drilling Fluid for High Pressure High Temperature and Deepwater Well

Base oil is the base fluids used in an invert emulsion drilling fluids system. Instead of using water as the base fluid, base oil is used in order to minimize the clay swelling problem in drilling applications. However, each base oils has different physical and chemical properties which may affect the properties of the drilling fluid. It is important to compare the performance of the base oil in order to select the most suitable and compatible base oil for a particular application. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance and compatibility of the new ETRO compared to others such as Saraline 185V, Sarapar 147, Escaid 110, and YK-D80N as the base oil in High Temperature High Pressure (HTHP) and deepwater condition and also to observe the effect of each base oils towards the drilling fluid properties. For this study, there are some aspects of the base oil that should be considered in selecting the best and most suitable base oil to be used in the drilling fluids like the physical properties, environmental toxicity and biodegradability, viscosity and stability of the fluid. For this study, besides comparing the performance of the base oils, we are more focusing on proving the compatibility of the new ETRO as the new base oil option for the industry especially for HPHT and deepwater drilling applications. Standard procedures of testing the mud is followed where the mud will be tested at before and after hot rolled for 16 hours at certain temperature which may differ depending on the particular application.