The influence of lignocellulosic fiber from oil palm trunk waste on drilling fluid filtration properties

Lost circulation and fluid loss are amongst the common problems encounter during drilling operation. The loss of mud and filtrate into formation could result in formation damage. Amongst the known formation damages are reduce in permeability and porosity in the near wellbore zone. Hence, an investigation was conducted on Oil Palm Trunk (OPT) fiber that have potential to act as fluid lost control (FLC) agent and lost circulation material (LCM). Rheology test and API filtration were performed to evaluate the performance of OPT fiber added drilling mud as FLC. Sand bed test was performed to evaluate the performance of OPT fiber added mud as LCM. For the API filtration test, addition at increase amount of OPT fiber did reduce the filtrate loss. The filter cake thickness increases as higher amount of OPT fiber was used in the drilling mud. The use of smallest size of OPT fiber (<75μm) yield the lowest fluid loss. For the sand bed test, mud invasion is reduced as the concentration of OPT fiber used increases. It was also found that, the OPT fiber with the size of 75μm to 150μm perform best in reducing mud invasion. Thus, it can be concluded that OPT fiber can be used as FLC or LCM. OPT fiber can be used as FLC as long as filter cake thickness was still within acceptable limit.