Unit – 3

Task – 8.2 Drilling and Completion Fluids

8.2.4 Understand the principles behind design of drilling fluids for reservoir
sections.

The principles behind the design of a reservoir fluid are essentially the same
except that it should not have a negative impact on the reservoir production
potential.

The mechanisms of damage are:

• Particles plugging the formation pore throats or fractures.

• Drilling and completion fluids reacting with formation water to form a
precipitate
• Emulsion from mixing oil and water
• Surfactants changing the wetting characteristics of the fluid.

In most cases it will be difficult to eliminate all material that will cause impairment.
Therefore in most cases the design will allow for a damage mechanism, via a
reversible process, to initially protect the reservoir and then allow maximum
permeability regain.

A variety of fluids can be used as drill-in fluids, including water-, oil and synthetic-
base fluids. Fluid selection depends on formation type, formation fluid
composition, formation damage mechanism and completion method.

Formation damage control:

• The fluid should not contain clays or acid-insoluble weight materials which
can migrate into the formation and plug pores.
• It should be formulated with breakable/acid-soluble viscosifiers, fluid-loss
materials and properly sized plugging agents.
• The filtrate should be formulated to prevent clays in the producing zone
from swelling, migrating or plugging the formation.
• The filtrate should be compatible with formation fluids so that it will not
precipitate mineral scales.
• The fluid and filtrate should not change the wetting characteristics of the
formation from either water-wet to oil-wet or from oil-wet to water-wet.
• The filtrate should not form emulsions with formation fluids and block the
formation.

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