Data on shale-water based drilling fluid interaction for drilling operation

What is it about?

The shale dispersion test (rolling test) is a common procedure that is used to measure the interactions between drilling fluids and shales. The shale rolling test depends on the moisture content of the shale, the shale composition, the viscosity of the test fluid, the rotation speed of the rollers, and the test temperature. The rheological behavior of the test fluid has the strongest influence on test results. The data was generated experimentally, shale samples from Agbada formation Niger-Delta was used. These shale samples were cored at a depth of 2000ft and 3400ft. Water based mud that will minimize shale dispersion and swelling of shale was formulated. The dispersion test was conducted, and it involves exposing a weighted quantity of sized shale to the formulated mud in roller-oven.

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Why is it important?

This test is used to design fluids and screen the effectiveness of inhibitor additives to maintain the integrity of the cuttings and minimize the interaction of fluids with the shale sections during the drilling and completion operations. The swelling test was conducted and the linear expansion adopted because it is the most representative of the increase seen by the wellbore but was measured in the direction perpendicular to the bedding plane as this is the direction of swelling into the wellbore.

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