Dangerous environmental consequences and market unpredictability of fossil fuels have necessitated the need for sustainable large-scale production of biofuel in Nigeria. Unrefined palm oil (UPO) is a significant product of commercially available oil palm plants in the country. This study experimentally investigates the production of biodiesel from refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palm olein extracted from UPO obtained from batch reactors. The transesterification process of the RBD palm olein with methanol and in the presence of potassium hydroxide (KOH) catalyst produced biodiesel with a 62.5% yield, thus confirming its feasibility for mass production. The derived biodiesel has properties equivalent to ASTM D792 standard for biodiesel fuels.

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The shale dispersion test (rolling test) is a common procedure that is used to measure the interactions between drilling fluids and shales. The shale rolling test depends on the moisture content of the shale, the shale composition, the viscosity of the test fluid, the rotation speed of the rollers, and the test temperature. The rheological behavior of the test fluid has the strongest influence on test results. The data was generated experimentally, shale samples from Agbada formation Niger-Delta was used. These shale samples were cored at a depth of 2000 ft and 3400 ft. Water based mud that will minimize shale dispersion and swelling of shale was formulated. The dispersion test was conducted, and it involves exposing a weighted quantity of sized shale to the formulated mud in roller-oven. This test is used to design fluids and screen the effectiveness of inhibitor additives to maintain the integrity of the cuttings and minimize the interaction of fluids with the shale sections during the drilling and completion operations. The swelling test was conducted and the linear expansion adopted because it is the most representative of the increase seen by the wellbore but was measured in the direction perpendicular to the bedding plane as this is the direction of swelling into the wellbore.

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