Desarrollo y aplicación de fluidos base agua de baja densidad para operaciones de perforación y rehabilitación de pozos

A great challenge PDVSA is facing nowadays is to get access to reserves having important volumes of remnant hydrocarbons in depleted and low-pressure reservoirs, where the utilization of conventional fluids is technically difficult, and not profitable. When hydrostatic pressure is higher than formation pressure partial or total loss of fluids can occur, with the following consequences: increase of drilling operation costs, potential fracture, formation damage, delay production, and finally, potential loss of the well. The drilling and workover fluids technologies, based on low density fluids, such as aerated fluids foams and also the utilisation of hollow glass sphere as density reductor agent appear to be good alternatives to overcome these problems. The successful application of each technology requires an adequate selection of the wells and an appropriate design of the fluid. This paper shows the development, characteristic and oilfield application of three low-density fluids technologies. These fluids were developed by PDVSA Intevep, and constitute attractive options from the technical and economic point of view with additional advantages upon the available systems in the market.