Rheological Properties of the Water-Based Muds Composed of Silica Nanoparticle Under High Pressure and High Temperature

Research currently has shown two contradicting conclusions about silica nanoparticle (SNP) application in mud fluid. While different studies have concluded that adding SNPs reduces the rheological properties, others have found that this is not the case. Therefore, this work was carried out to add to the literature and research that has already been done by different scholars on the performance of SNPs in water-based muds (WBMs). The synthesis of SNPs was performed by the sol-gel process based on the Stöber method in a mixture of a catalyst ammonium hydroxide containing tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), ethanol, and water. The distribution of particle dispersion, size, and zeta potential of SNP analysis was obtained using the dynamic light scattering analysis. Rheological analysis indicated good rheology at different temperatures with 0.5 wt% and 1.0 wt% silica concentration. Furthermore, viscosity and yield point (YP) were stabilized with nanoparticles (NPs at elevated temperatures (up to 176°C) as well as the reference mud maintained rheology (up to 121°C) and above that temperature, there was a drastic change indicating failure. Aging at temperatures above 121°C for 16 hours showed that NP WBMs remained stable with minor changes in rheology. Using bigger sized SNPs than previously used resulted to enhancement in the rheology of WBMs. Previous studies had used SNPs in sizes of 20–40 nm which negatively affected mud rheology. In this study, SNP of a bigger size resulted in rheological property enhancement. It is believed that particle size with other dynamics and mechanisms that still need to be investigated, for example, zeta potential, repulsive and attractive forces are some of the factors in play that affect nanoparticle performance in mud fluids. The obtained rheological data for different NP muds were matched to the traditional drilling mud rheological models to ascertain the best fit model that would be applied to an efficient design and the data fitted the Herschel-Bulkley model. Filtration tests at high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) conditions also indicated that synthesized SNPs used in the mud fluid resulted in a slightly low permeable thin mudcake and a low API gravity filtration loss which have great advantages when drilling through highly permeable formations. Filtrate loss was reduced by 7.5, 9.1, 15.4, and 6.7% when temperature increased to 100, 121, 149, and 176 °C at 1 wt% silica concentration, respectively. The mudcake was also improved and thickness reduced by 30 and 25% at 0.5 wt% silica concentration when temperatures increased from 149 and 176°C, respectively, compared to the reference mud (R) under HPHT conditions. The research results provide a comprehensive evaluation of an enhanced WBM using SNPs for HPHT applications. The investigated NP has the potential to improve drilling mud properties which may led to less formation damage and efficient drilling operations