AADE Houston FMG Meeting

Presenting – “API Procedure for Static Aging Drilling Fluid and Evaluating Barite Sag”

 

Static aging of drilling fluids is a common practice in drilling fluid laboratories and in the field. Static aging tests are used to evaluate the thermal stability of drilling fluids, conduct static shear measurement, and to evaluate barite sag. The API subcommittee for drilling fluids (SC 13) realized there were API standard procedures after aging for testing drilling fluid properties and checking shear strength; however, there were no standard procedures for aging drilling fluids to evaluate barite sag or for calculating and reporting the results. This presentation will mainly discuss the new API standard procedures for static aging fluid and evaluating barite sag. The learnings from the round robin testing will provide why the new procedure is an improvement over previously commonly used methods. The presentation will include a brief overview of API SC13 standards, round robin testing and methods used to develop new testing procedures.

 

Mike Otto started his career in drilling fluids in 1975. He is a mud engineer and has worked in operations, laboratory development, and field support roles. He is a member of the AADE, API, SPE, and GRC.

 

Paul Scott has 40+ years of worldwide experience with all types of fluids and issues. He has 19 years of experience on the service company side including 8 years of rigsite and the rest working for 3 different operators in central technical support roles. He is active within industry organizations such as SPE, API, and AADE.

 

Presenting – “Laboratory Testing for Wellbore Strengthening Versus Lost Circulation Control”

 

This presentation will look at how Wellbore Strengthening and Lost Circulation Control differ, both in terms of field operations and with a focus on laboratory testing. The lack of API standards related to fracture sealing testing has led to a variety of equipment being used throughout the industry. One of the more commonly used devices, the Slot Tester, will be compared to a device custom designed and built by SLB, the Small Block Tester. The advantages and disadvantages of each will be considered.

 

Josh Sheldon has 12 years of experience related to Wellbore Strengthening and Lost Circulation Control. This includes developing new products, designing LCM and WSM strategies for oilfields worldwide, and engineering new lab equipment and test procedures for evaluating fracture sealing materials.

 

Presenting – “A Benchtop Drilling Simulator and A Benchtop Oil Well Cement Comprehensive Analyzer”

 

A compact multi-functional drilling simulator was introduced for drilling mud testing under elevated temperature and pressure conditions.  The equipment aimed to provide consistent COF (coefficient of friction factor) measurements, radial directional formation loss circulation and filter cake measurement, and ROP (rate of penetration) measurement with real drilling mud and real formation core samples. Additionally, a cement analyzer was developed to reduce work load and cost of conducting consistency, SGS (static gel strength), filtration, gas migration, and UCA (ultrasonic cement analyzer) testing of oil well cement with only one load of a cement sample. Improved integrated view of cement properties and a deeper understanding of the correlation among various cement properties are expected. Each individual kind of test can be performed on this unit as well.

 

Frank Bi completed his MS degree in mechanical engineering from University of Oklahoma in 1995. Since 1996, he has been working in R&D group of testing equipment for oil and gas industry in organizations such as Fann Instrument Company and Grace Instrument Company. He was granted more than 20 US and international patents covers topics such as viscosity testing, mud sagging testing, linear swell measurement, cement testing, drilling data prediction algorithm, density measurement, drilling simulation, etc.