Combined Effect of Pressure and Temperature on the Viscous Behaviour of All-Oil Drilling Fluids

The overall objective of this research was to study the combined influence of pressure and temperature on the complex viscous behaviour of two oil-based drilling fluids. The oil-based fluids were formulated by dispersing selected organobentonites in mineral oil, using a high-shear mixer, at room temperature. Drilling fluid viscous flow characterization was performed with a controlled-stress rheometer, using both conventional coaxial cylinder and non-conventional geometries for High Pressure/High Temperature (HPHT) measurements. The rheological data obtained confirm that a helical ribbon geometry is a very useful tool to characterise the complex viscous flow behaviour of these fluids under extreme conditions. The different viscous flow behaviours encountered for both all-oil drilling fluids, as a function of temperature, are related to changes in polymer-oil pair solvency and oil viscosity. Hence, the resulting structures have been principally attributed to changes in the effective volume fraction of disperse phase due to thermally induced processes. Bingham's and Herschel-Bulkley's models describe the rheological properties of these drilling fluids, at different pressures and temperatures, fairly well. It was found that Herschel-Bulkley's model fits much better B34-based oil drilling fluid viscous flow behaviour under HPHT conditions. Yield stress values increase linearly with pressure in the range of temperature studied. The pressure influence on yielding behaviour has been associated with the compression effect of different resulting organoclay microstructures. A factorial WLF-Barus model fitted the combined effect of temperature and pressure on the plastic viscosity of both drilling fluids fairly well, being this effect mainly influenced by the piezo-viscous properties of the continuous phase.