Drilling and Completion Waste Reutilization and Zero Discharge Technology Used in China Bohai Bay

Abstract

With the increasingly stringent national environmental rules, waste produced in drilling and completion process is forbidden to be discharged into the Bohai Bay or reinjected into the formation. The current disposal method of drilling and completion waste in Bohai Oil field has some problems such as high cost, low efficiency and high HSE management and control risk. Faced with these problems, drilling and completion waste reutilization and zero discharge technology has been developed and applied in this region. In order to reutilize drilling and completion waste which include cuttings circulated from formation, wasted drilling and completion fluids, the following aspects are carried out: Firstly, drilling platform is upgraded to meet the zero discharge requirement: solid control system is modified, cuttings closed transfer system and cuttings treatment system are equipped on the platform to collect and dispose the waste. Meanwhile, recovery and disposal capacity to support different spud drilling are assessed: cuttings transport capacity is up to 15m3/h, which can meet the highest requirements of 12-1/4″ hole drilling when ROP is up to180m/h. Secondly, the well profile is downsized to reduce the production of cuttings, mud and other wastes from the root, which can also improve efficiency and yield cost. The field application shows that the amount of the waste has been reduced by 41.39%, 39.86% and 41.52% in first, second and third spud drilling, and average ROP is 35%, 28%, 42% higher than similar wells drilled before. Lastly, in drilling and completion fluids system optimization and reutilization aspects, environmentally friendly drilling and completion fluids with low solid content are developed. The experiment shows that the properties of the liquid phase after solid-liquid separation can be reused, and the solid phase with low water content is easy to pack and transport back to land. Drilling and completion waste reutilization and zero discharge technology introduced in this paper has been successfully applied in more than 40 wells, and the volume of waste drilling fluid is reduced by 80%, which is a trade-off between zero discharge and well construction cost. This technology can also be applied in other offshore oilfield which is inevitable as the environmental rules become more and more strict.