Mud Cooling with Closed Loop Water System

The challenged faced by many drilling campaigns in high ambient climates, in which temperatures can reach over 50 C°, is keeping the mud at the correct temperature for sustained periods of time to maximise the tool life and drilling time.

Our client was drilling long reach lateral hole sections to depths of 21,000+ ft resulting in an increase in bottom hole temperature which would potentially lead to MWD/LWD tool failures, NPT and costly commercial spend if not adequately cooled.

As there were no onsite water reserves and no natural heat dissipation, OSSO installed a single high volume mud cooler combined with a closed loop water cooling system prior to starting the 5 7/8” hole section. The system circulated the mud effectively reducing the mud temperature prior to it going back down the hole.

Equipment installation took less than a day and ran for the duration of the section, lasting 24 days. Our engineer maintained constant dialogue with all key rig and drilling personnel regularly relaying the data captured.

Temperature readings were recorded every hour, the data was taken from the rig mud system, flowline, active and BHT and OSSO mud cooler.

For the duration of the section the active tank surface temperature reduced from the initial 149 F° (65 C°) temperature to an average of 66F° (19 C°) while the flowline temperature reduced to 106 F° (41 C°) from an initial temperature of 149F° (65 C°).

The closed loop water cooling system provided water at a constant temperature of 44 F° (7 C°)