WorldWide Drilling Resource

17 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® DECEMBER 2014 Drilling Fluid Updates by Ray McLarty Drilling Fluids & Grouts Questions & Answers Anew year is just around the corner, and I hope everyone had a happy and profitable 2014. I want to take this oppor- tunity to wish each and everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Question We mostly use Quik Gel for HDD (horizontal directional drilling). It works well for us, and it is easy to find. We have used other products in the past includ- ing Bore Gel, but we always came back to Quik Gel. Our supplier is now trying to get us to try Quik Bore. What makes it any better than Quik Gel? Answer QUIK-GEL ® is high-yield water well drilling mud. High-yield, or 200-bbl (bar- rel) yield sodium bentonite drilling mud as it is commonly known, will yield 200 oil well barrels of drilling fluid per ton of material mixed. An oil well barrel is 42 U.S. gallons, so one ton will yield 8400 gallons of drilling fluid. Anyone mixing QUIK-GEL ® or any high-yield bentonite drilling mud, day in and day out, has come to expect a certain amount of yield per bag of material. Your HDD muds, of which BORE-GEL ® is one, usually do not yield as much as a typical high-yield sodium bentonite drilling mud. A typical HDD bentonite product will usually yield 140 to 160 oil well barrels, or between 5880 and 6720 gallons. So, looking at the difference in the yield of the two products, it looks like you are getting a little more bang for your buck by using the 200-bbl materials rather than an HDD mud. However, BORE-GEL ® , like most HDD bentonite-based muds on the mar- ket today, are designed to improve on conditions encountered in horizontal drilling. For example, suspension agents are often required in HDD drilling to aid in suspending cuttings and flushing them out of the bore. When using a high-yield water well product such as QUIK-GEL ® , you might not have enough suspension ability, so you have to add a product like NO-SAG ® , a dry biopolymer that, when added to bentonite drilling mud, increas- es the suspension ability of the drilling mud without significantly increasing the viscosity of the base fluid. Or, you might have to add a dry cellulosic polymer- based fluid loss control material such as QUIK-TROL ® GOLD that, when added to high-yield water well drilling mud, im- proves the fluid loss characteristic of the drilling fluid. QUIK-BORE™ , the product your supplier has suggested you try, is a fairly new HDD drilling fluid which supposedly combines the best of both worlds. On one hand, you have the additives and/ or polymers which have been added to improve cutting suspension and fluid loss control; on the other hand you have a product yielding 190 to 210 bbl, which is equal, if not greater than that of high- yield water well drilling muds. If you’re doing all HDD drilling, I suggest you give the QUIK-BORE™ a shot. Note: QUIK-GEL ® , is a Baroid IDP high-yield (200 bbl) sodium bentonite drilling mud. Similar products to QUIK- GEL ® would be CETCO ® SUPER GEL- X ® , Wyo-Ben EXTRA HIGH YIELD™ , or M-I SWACO MAX GEL . BORE-GEL ® is Baroid IDP’s original horizontal direc- tional drilling fluid. Similar products would be CETCO ® HYDRAUL-EZ ® , Wyo-Ben TRU-BORE ® , or M-I SWACO MAX BORE . NO-SAG ® and QUIK-TROL ® GOLD are Baroid IDP products. Similar products to NO-SAG ® , would be CETCO ® SUSPEND- IT™ , Wyo-Ben BORZAN ® , or M-I SWACO SUPER-VIS . Similar products to QUIK- McLarty cont’d on page 20.