Potential Of An Andrassy And Mansuli Bentonite As A Drilling Mud Material

摘要

This paper presents the results of laboratory treatment workson upgrading the bentonite from two areas of Sabah, Malaysia,namely Andrassy and Mansuli for the uses in petroleumindustry. Bentonite, as a common material used in water baseddrilling mud is the sodium bentonite. Since the Malaysianbentonite is proved to be calcium based, certain treatment isneeded to convert this bentonite to sodium variety. Thesuccessfully treated bentonite will be used as a material indrilling mud, which is cheaper as compared to the Wyomingand standard bentonite. This study included two treatmentprocesses; wet treatment and electrolysis. Several sodiumsources have been studied but only the sodium carbonate cansuccessfully be used to upgrade the bentonite. The resultsobtained after these two treatment processes showedimprovement in cation exchange capacity (CEC), which isabout 27% increment for electrolysis treatment and 22% to29% for wet treatment, respectively. However, the treatedbentonite failed to meet the API 13A Specification (AmericanPetroleum Institute) requirements for rheological propertieswhen used as a material in drilling mud. Thereafter, certainpolymer extender had been added to improve rheological ofthe upgraded bentonite slurry so that it can be used as adrilling mud material. In general the treated bentonite fromMalaysia can be used as a replacement for the more expensiveimported bentonite especially for local petroleum industry. Inaddition, the methods developed can also be used to convertthe similar type of bentonite from other locations, since thelarge deposits of calcium based bentonite can be foundin Malaysia.