Propylene glycol mono and di stearates as water in oil emulsifiers for oil-well drilling fluids

The objective of drilling operation is to drill, evaluate and complete a well that will produce oil and/or gas efficiently. The responsibility for performing these functions is held by using drilling mud.The research will focus on the oil base mud system due to the importance of that kind of drilling fluid which helped to address several drilling problems such as formation clays that react, swell or slough after expose to WBFs, increasing down hole temperatures, contaminants, stuck pipe, torque and drag.The research will rely on an economical-low cost prepared emulsifiers that used as W/O emulsifiers for oil base mud instead of the imported emulsifier. The new prepared emulsifiers provide an excellent options with emulsification power for oil-based mud that formulated from diesel oil and water.The nonionic emulsifiers were prepared through the esterification reaction of propylene glycol (1 mol) and stearic acid (1 mol) and/or (2 mol), the products were two oil soluble nonionic emulsifiers with hydrophilic/lipophilic balance (HLB) of 3.4 and 2.8 respectively. The chemical structure was confirmed using elemental analysis, FTIR and 1H NMR.The new prepared emulsifiers were evaluated as primary emulsifiers for oil – base mud and the results were compared with the currently used primary emulsifier. The obtained results exhibited interesting rheology properties and shear-thinning behavior, yield value, thixotropy, gel strength and filter loss. Keywords: Drilling fluids, Drilling mud, Filtration loss, Gel strength, Rheology, Propylene glycol stearat