STUDY OF COCONUT OIL AS OIL BASED FLUID IN DRILLING OPERATION

Drilling fluid is a critical component in the drilling process, where it provides the gel to efficiently lift cuttings, maintain stable wellbore and produce sufficient hydrostatic pressure that could prevent the influx of formation fluids into the wellbore.
Even-though Oil-based drilling fluids are widely used in drilling operation because it enable to provide good wellbore stability, good lubrication that leads to faster Rate of penetration, temperature stability and low formation damage but it have been proven that the disposal of oil-contaminated drill cutting causes environmental hazard especially Diesel as base oil.
Vegetable oil in this project – Coconut oil is renewable, highly biodegradable could be suitable candidate of a highly biodegradable oil-based mud to achieve the sustainable development. Thus, six mud samples were formulated with six different composition of based fluids which are Saraline, 100%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50% Coconut oil based mud samples. This paper presents the laboratory study such as viscosity, yield point, gel strength, filtration and electric stability had been undertaken to determine whether the Coconut oil were an acceptable alternative to diesel in order to overcome environmental problem.