DESIGN OF RESERVOIR FRIENDLY DRILLING FLUID FOR SHALE RESERVOIRS USING SYNTHESIZED ZINC OXIDE(ZnO)NANOPARTICLES

Numerous studies have explored how nanoparticles (NPs) affect the properties of drilling fluids, such as rheology, fluid loss control, and thermal and electrical conductivity. These studies consistently demonstrate that the addition of various NPs can enhance the rheological and filtration properties of drilling fluids across different temperature and pressure conditions. Such studies show that carefully designed drilling mud can be used for drilling the difficult unconventional resources such as Shale Reservoirs. In this study, for Shale Reservoir, a Water Base Drilling Mud (WBDM) were designed with ZnO NPs, that were synthesized in the laboratory using the sol-gel method with Zinc Nitrate Hexahydrate (Zn(NO3)2.6H2O) as a precursor. Base mud was prepared with 5 wt% Bentonite, 1 wt% XG, 1 wt% PAC-R; 0.5 wt% PAC-L, and 6 wt/v% KCl in 400mL deionized water. In the base mud, 0.05 wt%, 0.1 wt% & 0.15 wt% ZnO nanoparticles were thoroughly mixed and KOH was added to maintain the pH level at 9-10. Results show that the concentration of 0.1 wt% ZnO NPs in Base Mud is the optimum concentration and the mud can be used for Shale Reservoir, as the fluid loss was reduced. API Fluid loss was reduced by almost 18% with 0.1% ZnO addition.