Calculation and application of partition coefficients of light hydrocarbons in oil-based mud system

Abstract

To find out the relationship between the oil-based mud, the formation fluid and the extracted gas, we use a thermodynamic approach based on static headspace gas chromatography technique to calculate the partition coefficients of 47 kinds of light hydrocarbons compounds between nC5 and nC8 in two kinds of oil-based mud-air systems, and reconstruct the original formation fluid composition under thermodynamic equilibrium. The oil-based drilling mud has little effect on the formation fluid compositions in the range of nC5–nC8 (less than 1% for low-toxicity oil-based mud and less than 10% for oil-based mud). For most light hydrocarbon compositions, the partition coefficients obtained by vapor phase calibration and the direct quantitative methods have errors of less than 10%, and the partition coefficients obtained by direct quantitative method are more accurate. The reconstructed compositions of the two kinds of crude oil have match degrees of 91% and 89% with their real compositions, proving the feasibility and accuracy of reconstructing the composition of original formation fluid by using partition coefficients of light hydrocarbon compositions between nC5 and nC8.

Keywords

• oil-based mud
• drilling mud gas
• light hydrocarbon compositions
• partition coefficients
• reservoir fluid