Drilling fluids are critical to maintaining well safety and quality during construction and completion. That makes drilling fluid properties key control parameters of the drilling and completion process. Moreover, increased efficiency of new drilling technology, and demand for data driven by digital advances in remote monitoring and analytics require frequent and reliable measurement of the physical and chemical properties of drilling fluids. Typically, these properties have been measured by manual field sampling and testing. But manual testing lags advances in drilling efficiency, causes delays, and is susceptible to bias, inconsistencies, and inadvertent human errors.
Mud properties must be monitored and adapted as drilling progresses to total depth. These properties are not only critical to the safety and efficiency of the operation, they also provide valuable information throughout the drilling process. With this information, problems can be anticipated, and changes can be made. With better and more frequent measurements of mud properties comes improved safety and reduced nonproductive time (NPT), cost, and time to total depth.
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