No abstract

Numerous studies have been carried out on diesel as base fluid in oil-based drilling fluids, and have concluded that diesel oil-based mud is highly environmentally unfriendly and expensive to dispose. One of the ways to avoid these problems while keeping the advantages of oil-based muds is to substitute diesel in muds with environmentally friendly oils, such as Jatropha oil. This study examined the rheological properties of Jatropha oil based mud in the presence of sodium chloride and potassium chloride salts, and at increasing temperature of the muds. The results showed that salinity and temperature have negative effects on flow properties of oil-based drilling fluids. It also showed that jatropha oil based mud exhibits less adaptability than diesel oil based mud under high salinity and temperature condition, hence there is the need to improve the rheological properties of jatropha oil based mud under this condition. Finally it was revealed that Jatropha oil-based mud possesses great chances of being a technically viable replacement for Diesel oil-based mud.