Boy, oh boy, is it hot! It is 104 degrees here in the Texas sun. This hot weather and some questions from a colleague lead me to today's column on drilling fluid hydraulics. I arrived in Fort Worth, Texas, some 20-plus years ago a few months before the annual summer heat hit. A common drilling problem in this area is bit balling and drill cuttings packing off around the drill bit, drill collars, and stabilizers when drilling in some of the local formations. My recommendation to remedy this problem-based on what the drillers told me over the phone-was to have them add an inhibitive polymer (PHPA), a filtration control polymer (PAC), and a detergent to their fluid mix. As described in previous columns, these products inhibit or minimize the drill cuttings from getting water wet and minimize the stickiness of the cuttings surface so they do not agglomerate or stick together or stick to the drill steel. These recommendations worked to a degree but did not entirely solve the problem.
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