Design and development of optimal drilling-fluid systems, as well as their proper maintenance while drilling, are essential components of any successful drilling campaign. As the oil and gas industry is drilling in more-challenging areas (e.g., unconventional shale oil/gas wells, deepwater offshore wells, and deep high-pressure/high-temperature sour gas wells), the demand for more-accurate real-time assessment of the downhole state of the drilling fluids during drilling operations increases.

Recent developments in drilling systems automation provide a multitude of opportunities to have real-time monitoring of drilling-fluid properties and early diagnosis of drilling-fluid-related complications that might arise while drilling. Coupled with closed-loop control of surface and downhole drilling-fluid properties, automated monitoring of fluid properties would allow rig personnel to make timely corrections to the drilling-fluid program, which eventually would lead to more-cost-efficient and safer drilling operations.

This feature provides examples of such new technologies that can be used as part of the automated drilling-fluid monitoring system, allowing real-time control of drilling-fluid rheological properties (i.e., density and viscosity) and management of solids content with potential benefits of real-time management of equivalent circulating density, effective hole cleaning/cuttings transport, increasing drilling rate, and reducing nonproductive time, resulting in safer wells drilled at minimum costs.

Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.

SPE 199101 - Field Results of a Real-Time Drilling-Fluid Monitoring System by Sérgio Magalhães, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, et al.

SPE 200990 - Intelligent Pressure-Control System for Managed-Pressure Drilling by Zhao Hui Song, Engineering Technology Research Institute of XDEC, et al.

SPE 203389 - Real-Time Measurement of Drilling-Fluid Rheology and Density Using Acoustics by Paul Ofoche, Texas A&M University, et al.

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