Abstract:
The objective of a drilling operation is to drill, evaluate and complete a well that will produce oil and/or gas efficiently, drilling fluids perform numerous functions that help make this possible so it is very important to design and an adequate drilling mud taking into account all well condition.
This study based on a laboratory experiments and investigates the behavior and properties of drilling mud by adding various concentrations by weightof local Fly Ash that produced in Garri4 power plant, followingtheAPI RP13B-1 standard practices, in order to improve the properties of drilling mud and reduce the negative effect of Fly Ash on environment and human health.
The laboratory experiments have been divided into two type of tests, the chemical test and rheological test, in the chemical test the XRD and XRF tests were used to obtain the characteristics of Fly Ash and the results showed that it consists of different types of chemical compounds such as calcium oxide (CaO), silicon dioxide (SiO2) and Ferric oxide (Fe2O3). The other test was to estimate the physical and rheological properties of drilling mud systems that have been developed.
The Analytical results of the laboratory tests indicated that the drilling mud properties were enhanced with the useof fly ash. A comparison between a mud systemcontains Fly Ash and other mud systems containing Barite, Starch, or PAC-LV, was carried out and the results obtained emphasis that the mud systems containing Fly Ash was good in filtration loss control, gel strength, density, and PH
