Drilling Fluids: Drill More Efficiently To Save Time, Money Compared to Water Drilling

�We have all heard about those contractors that drill only with water and swear by it; and we all have heard about those contractors who have lost drill stem, beacons, bits, and pipe under a road somewhere because of "problems". These problems translate into $2000, $3000,�or more in money coming out of your pocket!

Why roll the dice on each and every job when by investing just a few pennies per gallon of water pumped down hole you can start stacking the odds in your favor.

First of all what soils are you drilling in? Around the Houston Area it is clay, sand or a mixture of the two.

Clay - What does it do to your machine, pipe and job costs? As you are pumping water down hole the clay in our area loves the water and begins to act as a large vise grip on your drill stem and product your are pulling in. This causes pressures to start climbing and loss of man hours as the job begins to slow and maybe even grind to a halt. The other cost that clay grabs hold of is fuel expenditures due to the increased loads on the engine and increase time on the job site.

Sand - What does it do to your machine, pipe and job costs? Where clay swells and grips the pipe sand will fall down around your drill stem and act like a sand blaster eating away at the drill stem and then will also fall down in between your reamer and product you are installing. Now your drill rig has to have enough pulling forces to pull in the product that you are installing as well as act as a bulldozer moving all that sand that is built up at the�leading edge of the�new pipe.�Again what does this do to your costs? Nothing pretty.

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So how does drilling fluids help put money in your pocket? By getting you off the job faster and by allowing you complete to job the first time instead of the second, third or worse. Baroid has for the past 100 years been developing products that:

Remove cuttings from the bore hole
Supports the bore hole
Protects and controls the ground surrounding your bore hole.

Drilling fluids helps stop problems from developing. Water does none of the above functions well at all; and will actually cause problems in all the areas above.

Lets look at the products that Baroid offers for the HDD industry. Click on the name of each product for a MSDS on each item in both English and Spanish!

Bore-Gel - Bentonite is the base that when sheared as it is mixed with water gives the water the needed muscles to pick up and move the cuttings from your bit or backream and get them out of the way! Make sure you are using this in the proper concentration and not just mixing up colored water.

Con Det EZ Mud Gold Penetrol- Con Det is used to counter act the swelling of clay soils when exposed to water. EZ Mud Gold takes it step further by wrapping itself around the clay to keep the water from interacting with the clay. Penetrol is the latest version in this clay fighting line; it wraps itself around the metal in the downhole tools thus allowing the same action but with smaller quantities. This can be used to keep the hole open and to keep your backreamers and bits clean so they can cut the soil rather then just compacting it.

Aqua-Clear PFD - When drilling in clay soils are the returns from your bore hole oozing out? Does the drilling fluids coming back to your pit seem to be way too thick? Stop and add in this product to your drilling fluid mix to thin out the returns to allow your crews to work at a faster pace!

Diamond Seal N Seal - Where did all the drilling returns go? When this happens on the job start looking for the water to come out somewhere! Hopefully it is not pushing a portion of that freeway up that your drilling under. These products help seal the bore hole so that the drilling fluids stay in the hole, moving the cuttings out so the pipe can come in, and keeping the water from fracking out under something that will cause more headaches and less profits! Funny how those two seem to go around hand and hand. Use with caution if you are drilling with a mud motor and/or screens. The difference between these two? Diamond Seal needs some time to begin to work; N-Seal goes immediately to work! Funny some crews have people like that too!

No Sag Everyone hates sag! This product helps the drilling fluids pick up the heavier soils (sand, gravel) and get them out of the way! Otherwise the soils tend to settle in bottom of the hole so now the pipe your are pulling in gets to act like a bulldozer pushing all the cuttings as it comes in to the bore hole! Watch that hydraulic pressure gauge as it shoots upward; slowing down the job, and adding more fuel costs to your bottom line.

Quick Trol Quick Trol LV - Filter Cake? Everyone loves cake especially cake that helps keep the bore hole walls nice and strong keeping the ground formations out of the way so your pipe can come right in. So you can have your cake and eat it too; just might not be the tastiest treat.

Soda Ash - All water is not created equal! Drilling in an area where you have to rely on a pond, a marsh, a rented water truck? No matter how great the additives you are putting in your water to create the drilling fluids; your drilling fluids are only as good as the water you start with! Soda Ash helps bring the water to a state that makes for great drilling fluids by reducing the hardness and raising the PH so that the additives can do their job!

Formulas

First things first; just as all soils are different there is not a one formula mixture to handle all soil types! With that in mind, the formula's below are a good place to start for jobs and then adjust the mixtures according to the conditions you encounter.

Don't worry it is not rocket science and there is plenty of help available. If you are about to start a job and would like some advice or on a job and need help call us we can bring a Bariod rep out to your job site and make things easy! The best part is that it is free!!!!!!

Another free resource is available; click on the names of the products above and open the MSD sheets. Each sheet walks you thru how to mix and suggested measurements per 100 gallons of water.

Sandy / Gravel / Coarse Type Soils

Soda Ash 1/2 - 1 pound per 100 gallons of water

Bore-Gel 25- 60 pounds per 100 gallons of water

Quick Trol LV 1/2 - 2 pounds per 100 gallons of water

No Sag 1/2 - 1 1/2 pound per 100 gallon of water

Clay / Shale / Sticky Type Soils

Soda Ash 1/2 - 1 pound per 100 gallons of water

EZ Mud 1/2 - 2 Quarts per 100 gallons of water

Penetrol 1 - 4 quarts per 100 gallons of water

Bad Clay (Really Sticky, Swelling Clay)

Soda Ash 1/2 - 1 pound per 100 gallons of water

Poly Bore 3 - 10 pounds per 100 gallons of water