Journal of Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology

Prediction of frictional pressure losses while drilling for optimum equivalent circulating density

4^th International Conference on Petroleum Engineering

August 15-17, 2016 London, UK

Kevin C Igwilo, Emenike Egelle and Amadi Chukwuemeka James

Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pet Environ Biotechnol

Abstract:

A great challenge in the oil and gas drilling is the unstable nature of the Equivalent Circulating Density (ECD) of the drilling fluid. This is greatly affected by the Frictional Pressure losses incurred during the circulation of the given drilling fluid. To predict and control this problem, a research of this magnitude has been embarked upon and this work presents a simplified and accurate procedure which first selects the rheological model that best fits the rheological properties of the given fluid. This selection will then help to ensure an accurate calculation and prediction of the frictional pressure losses which will hence result to an optimized drilling process. The model which gave the lowest absolute average percent error (EAAP) between the measured and calculated shear stresses was the Herschel-Bulkley model (HBM) with EAAP of 2.178%, it also predicted the least frictional pressure losses at different flow rates, the API Power law model for pipe flow was next with 14%, but predicted higher losses than HBM and BPM, the BPM model gave 18.46%, etc. The accuracy of these results are of great importance for they help in computing correct results for pressure drop calculations and can be used for complex hydraulic calculations.

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