Automated Surface Measurements of Drilling Fluid Properties: Field Application in the Permian Basin

摘要

Accurate and frequent mud checking is critical to optimum well construction. Proper assessment and management of drilling fluid properties such as density and rheology maintain the primary well control barrier and optimize fluid hydraulics and hole cleaning ability. However, a full mud check while drilling is typically done only once or twice a day. Moreover, the measurements are performed using antiquated equipment, with data quality and reliability that are highly dependent on the practicing mud engineer. Automated, continuous and practical drilling fluid monitoring is therefore needed. In this paper, we introduce an automated mud skid unit (MSU) which performs continuous drilling fluid sampling and measurements at variable temperatures. The unit is able to provide the non-Newtonian rheological constants characterizing a Yield-Power Law (YPL) fluid as well as the real-time friction factor and critical Reynolds number using a pipe-viscometer measurement approach. Other important fluid properties such as pressurized-density, oil/water ratio and temperature are provided using high-quality inline sensors. The unit is controlled by a programmable logic controller (PLC) coupled with a Linux operating system for data analysis. The system is able to send real-time data to WITSML data servers and provide detailed mud reports to engineers working either on-site or remotely.