Influência de microgéis de hidroxipropilguar nas propriedades reológicas e de filtração de fluidos de perfuração aquosos

Abstract

Aqueous drilling fluids are a widely used systemin the world to drill oil wells. This drilling system has been being developed excellent formulations for drilling initial sections with low temperature and low pressure in recent decades. However, the oil reserves in these conditions are increasingly scarce, ending up in the need for drilling fluids with better operational performance in the toughest conditions. Therefore, it has been reported in the literature the need for aqueous systems to operate at high temperatures and high pressures (HTHP). High temperatures of oil wells favor the chemical degradation of polymers (commonly reported in additive formulations currently in the literature and applied in operational situations), that can generate molecular weight reduction and viscosity losses. Microgels can be applied in vast industrie`s segments, highlighted in the oil field, as they are used in the estimulation of wells and in the Advanced Oil Recovery (EOR). In this work, the applicability of hydroxypropyl guar`s microgels (HPG), obtained by crosslinking the HPG with borate ions, was measured as the thermal stability in water based drilling fluids.The application HPG microgels in water-based drilling fluid has increased viscosity and the apparent volume of the filtrate reduced around 25 ° C. However, with the increase of temperature to 50 °C, the viscosity of drilling fluids based on HPG microgels decreased from 85 mPa.s to 25,45 mPa.s. These results indicate that the use of microgels in aqueous drilling fluids is a promising alternative since the crosslinking agent has been properly selected, i.e., does not undergo deactivation with increasing temperature and is not affected by the salinity of the system.