Design and development of optimal drilling-fluid systems, as well as their proper maintenance while drilling, are essential components of any successful drilling campaign. As the oil and gas industry is drilling in more-challenging areas (e.g., unconventional shale oil/gas wells, deepwater offshore wells, and deep high-pressure/high-temperature sour gas wells), the demand for more-accurate real-time assessment of the downhole state of the drilling fluids during drilling operations increases.
Recent developments in drilling systems automation provide a multitude of opportunities to have real-time monitoring of drilling-fluid properties and early diagnosis of drilling-fluid-related complications that might arise while drilling. Coupled with closed-loop control of surface and downhole drilling-fluid properties, automated monitoring of fluid properties would allow rig personnel to make timely corrections to the drilling-fluid program, which eventually would lead to more-cost-efficient and safer drilling operations.
This feature provides examples of such new technologies that can be used as part of the automated drilling-fluid monitoring system, allowing real-time control of drilling-fluid rheological properties (i.e., density and viscosity) and management of solids content with potential benefits of real-time management of equivalent circulating density, effective hole cleaning/cuttings transport, increasing drilling rate, and reducing nonproductive time, resulting in safer wells drilled at minimum costs.
This Month’s Technical Papers
Automated Approaches Determine Solids Content in Drilling and Completions Fluids
Automated Drilling-Fluids-Measurement Technique Improves Fluid Control, Quality
Inline Setup Provides Automatic Measurement of PVT Behavior of Drilling Fluids
Recommended Additional Reading
SPE 199101 Field Results of a Real-Time Drilling-Fluid Monitoring System by Sérgio Magalhães, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, et al.
SPE 200990 Intelligent Pressure-Control System for Managed-Pressure Drilling by Zhao Hui Song, Engineering Technology Research Institute of XDEC, et al.
SPE 203389 Real-Time Measurement of Drilling-Fluid Rheology and Density Using Acoustics by Paul Ofoche, Texas A&M University, et al.
Ergun Kuru, SPE, is a professor and the director of petroleum engineering in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Alberta. He holds a BS degree from Middle East Technical University and MS and PhD degrees from Louisiana State University, all in petroleum engineering. Previously, Kuru worked as a faculty member at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. For more than 30 years, he has been teaching courses and conducting research on subjects related to drilling and well-completion engineering. Kuru has authored or coauthored more than 190 technical papers. He has served on several SPE committees, including the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition Drilling Engineering Program Committee, the Global Training Committee, and the Education and Accreditation Committee. He received the 2017 SPE Canada Region Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty and was named an SPE Distinguished Member in 2021. Kuru is a member of the JPT Editorial Review Committee.
