Oil well muds

Other industrial applications include wire drawing, stabilisation of industrial wastes, production of non-ferrous metals, oil well muds, oil/petrochemical additives and refractories. 

Petroleum. Apart from its use ia petrochemicals manufacture, there are a number of small, scattered uses of lime ia petroleum (qv) production. These are ia making red lime (drilling) muds, calcium-based lubricating grease, neutralization of organic sulfur compounds and waste acid effluents, water treatment ia water flooding (secondary oil recovery), and use of lime and pozzolans for cementing very deep oil wells. 

Oilfield Uses. Calcium chloride has two uses in the oilfield as a primary ingredient in completion fluids and as the brine phase in an invert emulsion oil mud. An excellent review of oil well drilling fluids is available (36) (see also Petroleum, drilling fluids). 

Sulfates or sulfonates Alkali metal salts of sulfated alcohols, sulfonic acid salts alkyl-aryl sulfonates sodium laiiryl sulfate Nonaqiieoiis systems mixed aqueous and nonaqiieoiis systems oil-well drilling muds spent H3SO4 recovery deep-fat frying... 

Figure 5-5G. Curved-blade turbine, devei-oped especlaily for agitating fibrous materials such as paper stock. Also used on oil well drilling muds. This impeller gives fast, thorough turnover without need for the usual tank baffling or mid-feather construction. Courtesy of Lightnin (formerly Mixing Equipment Co.), a unit of General Signal.

Oil-base mud maintenance involves close monitoring of the mud properties along with the mud temperature, as well as the chemical treatment (in which the order of additions must be strictly followed). The following general guidelines should be considered ... 

A final important class of composite materials is the composite hquids. Composite liquids are highly stmctured fluids based either on particles or droplets in suspension, surfactants, liquid ciystalhne phases, or other macromolecules. A number of composite liquids are essential to the needs of modem industiy and society because they exhibit properties important to special end uses. Examples include lubricants, hydraulic traction fluids, cutting fluids, and oil-drilling muds. Paints, coatings, and adhesives may also be composite liquids. Indeed, composite hquids are valuable in any case where a well-designed liquid state is absolutely essential for proper delivery and action. 

Synthetic-based muds are mineral oil muds in which the oil phase has been replaced with a synthetic fluid, such as ether, ester, PAO, or linear alkylbenzene, and are available from major mud companies. The mud selection process is based on the mud s technical performance, environmental impact, and financial impact. Synthetic muds are expensive. Two factors influence the direct cost unit or per-barrel cost and mud losses. Synthetic muds are the technical equivalent of oil-based muds when drilling intermediate hole sections. They are technically superior to all water-based systems when drilling reactive shales in directional wells. However, with efficient solids-control equipment, optimized drilling, and good housekeeping practices, the cost of the synthetic mud can be brought to a level comparable with oil-based mud [1308]. 

Drilling mud has to be pumped down into an oil well that is 8000 ft deep. The mud is to be pumped at a rate of 50 gpm to the bottom of the well and back to the surface, through a pipe having an effective ID of 4 in. The pressure at the bottom of the well is 4500 psi. What pump head is required to do this The drilling mud has properties of a Bingham plastic, with a yield stress of 100 dyn/cm2, a limiting (plastic) viscosity of 35 cP, and a density of 1.2 g/cm3. 

It has been widely known that a water-insoluble gel is obtained when spent sulfite liquors are treated with dichromate solutions. This property has been used, among other things, for increasing the tanning effect of lignosulfonates and for making oil well drilling muds. 

The application of lignosulfonate-chromium derivatives in oil well drilling mud has already been mentioned as a typical example of the above effects in combination with crosslinking. The use of lignosulfonates as active extenders in concretes is a further example of the applicability of the above effects (61). Another is the use of lignins as extenders for asphalt cement (70). 

Dry ground mica concentrate is processed into usable products hy several dillerent grinding methods. Relatively coarse particle sizes (1.651-0.147 mm (10-100 mesh)) are used in oil-well drilling muds. 

Fig. 1. Cemented tungsten carbide compacts and mud nozzles for oil well drilling. (Fansteel)...

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