Aging Effects on the Rheological Properties of Novel Magnesium Bromide Hexahydrate-Based Completion Fluids for Oil and Gas Reservoirs

As per the American Petroleum Institute (API) definition, completion fluid is defined as a brine-, oil-, or gas-based fluid that is used as isolation (kill, separation, inhibition functions, etc.) fluid during the completion of a well. Novel magnesium bromide-based completion fluid exhibits high density and solid free. If design completion fluid is not solid free, then it will cause formation damage and plugging and eroding of tubular and completion equipment. The completion fluid must be high density to provide sufficient density for well control and mechanical stabilization of the wellbore. We have investigated the effects of aging on the rheological properties of completion fluid such as plastic viscosity (PV), apparent viscosity (AV), yield point (YP), gel strength, shear stress, pH, and specific gravity. In this experiment, base salt is taken as magnesium bromide in hexahydrate form and the rheology temperature range is considered 85–185 °F. The rheology properties of formulated 12.91-lb/gal, specific gravity 1.55 completion fluid are investigated before heat roll (BHR) at an aging time (hr.) initial 0 h and after heat roll (AHR) at aging time 16 h for hot-rolled (HR) temperature 320 °F using Bingham plastic rheological model. The experimental results showed that the magnesium bromide-based clear completion fluid exhibits high specific gravity of 1.55, 12.91-lb/gal and pH in alkaline region to mitigate the corrosion issues. This study aims to evaluate the effect of rheological behavior under prolonged exposure time, and temperature (aging process) for reservoir conditions.