The use of coconut fibre as standard ph enhancer for drilling mud formulation

Thesis Abstract

In the present day oil and gas industry, the chemicals used as pH controller are usually imported at an exorbitant price – which take a large part of the drilling cost and have ripple effect on the economy of the Nation. It is however necessary to source for an alternative by the use of local materials so as to enhance cost effectiveness. This study nonetheless focus on investigating the suitability of locally sourced materials as pH enhancer in a drilling mud program. A high pH is desirable to suppress corrosion rate, hydrogen embrittlement and the solubility of Ca2+ and Mg2+ which makes up clay. In addition, the high pH is a favorable environment for many of the organic viscosity control additives. For years this additives use to help maintain this property are imported and this contribute to high cost of drilling and which adversely affect the economy. In order to minimize this cost and maximize profit ,the locally made additives is been investigated to supplement the imported .Burnt coconut fiber is used as a pH enhancer because it is environmentally friendly in that it is degradable and has no adverse effect on the formation properties. Nevertheless, the result from the experiment conducted in this study revealed that; the local additives imparted significant pH unit of 13.0 in the drilling mud when compared to the foreign addictive such as sodium hydroxide which gave 13.8.