Development of Jatropha oil-in-water emulsion drilling mud system

Abstract The increase in strict environmental regulations limits the use of diesel based muds as these muds are toxic and disposal of cuttings into the environment is a major issue faced by the drilling industries. To overcome this issue, an attempt has been made to develop oil-in-water emulsion mud system using jatropha oil. The effect of oil, bentonite clay and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) polymer on the rheological parameters and fluid loss control property of the developed system was analyzed thoroughly. The jatropha oil-in-water emulsion mud system had shown better rheological and filtration properties than the diesel oil-in-water emulsion mud system. The Jatropha oil-in-water mud system had lower coefficient of friction than the diesel oil based mud system. This is an indicative of relatively higher lubricating property of this system. Low formation damage effect and high shale recovery performance were obtained with this system during the core flow study and shale recovery test. The zeta potential measurements have been carried out to analyze the emulsion stability and it was found that the addition of clay (0.5–4.0 wt/v%) and CMC (0.1–1.0 wt/v%) has enhanced the stability of the emulsions. Hence, the developed jatropha oil-in-water emulsion mud system has a great prospect in the development of emulsion muds desired for the drilling of oil wells.