Minimizing Energy Consumption and Downtime in Oil and Gas Drilling Exploration Through Tribology

Abstract

The scarcity of conventional oil reservoirs has led the oil and gas (O&G) industry to develop non-conventional extraction techniques such as extended-reach drilling (ERD) that brings new engineering challenges. Challenges such as high frictional torque and drag increases O&G exploration and production (E&P) costs in terms of time, energy consumption, tool replacement, and environmental restoration. One technical way to tackle the challenge is to improve the tribological performance of the drilling mud used as lubricating fluid to decrease friction and wear in the drilling process. In this study, a tribological approach is used to investigate the effect of organic friction modifiers (OFM) on drilling fluid friction reduction and wear protection. The results show that the use of a high molecular amide OFM in drilling mud reduces friction by 36% and wear by 90%. Additionally, the tribological effects of these friction modifiers on water-based mud (WBM) is studied to increase its technical performance. WBM is desirable due to two important aspects such as its lower cost and milder environmental impact in comparison to OBM. This study shows that the main source of COF and wear reductions are the mechanical and chemical properties of lubricating compounds called tribochemical layers which is produced during tribological processes. A characterization technique called Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) is used to characterize the surface chemistry of the best tribological interfaces for developing more superior friction modifier additives.