subject: Chemicals Use In Oil Drilling Process [print this page] The chemical which are mainly used in oil drilling process is known as oil drilling chemical. The process of manufacturing the oil drilling chemicals involve sophisticated technology as to ensure high level performance. Drilling fluid is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. The main function of drilling fluid includes providing hydrostatic pressure to prevent formation fluids and to limit corrosion.
There are various chemicals used in oil drilling process such as bentonite, calcium carbonate (coarse, medium and fine), barite and potassium chloride.
Bentonite is a high yield natural sodium montomorillonite and it is natural occurring clay. It is used in drilling mud for controlling borehole stability and utilized in drilling mud to extract drill cuttings from the bit. Bentonite should be handled just like an industrial chemical by wearing gloves or other protective equipments. It promotes borehole stability, helps to improve hole cleaning capacities of drilling fluids and can be added directly to fresh water based drilling fluids. It acts as a filtration control agent for water based mud system.
Another chemical used in oil drilling process is calcium carbonate which is used as a bridging and weighing agent in drilling. It is acid soluble and can be used in both oil based and water based fluid system. It should be handled like an industrial chemical with protective equipments and is available in three sizes as coarse, medium or fine. It is one of the effective and excellent bridging agent and weighing agent as well.
Barite is also used in oil drilling processing to increase the density of drilling fluids. It is chemically soluble and does not react with other drilling chemicals easily. In addition potassium chloride is widely used in industry and a high purity, dry crystalline salt composed of potassium and chlorine. It is particularly known as potash when used as a fertilizer.
In the above information we came to know that chemicals used in oil drilling process can be used in water based fluid system and oil based fluid system. However there are various types of drilling fluids are available which are used on daily basis such as water based, oil based, synthetic based, air/polymer, air/water, air and water etc. Oil based fluid system are usually a mixture of diesel fuel and asphalt. This system contains oil as the continuous phase and water as a contaminant. On the other hand, the water based system contains varying quantities of bentonite and a polymer and also known as low solid mud.
Mostly water based drilling mud consists of bentonite clay with additives like barium sulfate and calcium carbonate. Barite (a weighting agent) is added to increase the overall density of the drilling fluids so that the pressure can be maintained.
Different types of chemicals are used in pharmaceutical industry to make different types of medicines such as antibiotics, antiseptics, analgesics and antipyretic etc. Several chemicals compounds are used to make these medicine groups with similar chemical structure. But the methods of conversion from chemical to pharmaceutical drugs are different for every medicine.
Antibiotic is one of the chemical substances produced by micro-organism which harms or kills another micro-organism. It is prescribed when someone has viral infection. Antibiotics are made with natural products such as bacteria and fungus. Chemicals which are used in antibiotics are penicillin, tetracycline, ampicillin, amoxicillin sulpha drugs like sulphanilamide, sulphadiazine, sulphaguanidine, chloramphenicol, quinolones, sulfonamides etc.
