Oilfield Emulsion

Definition - What does Oilfield Emulsion mean?

An Oilfield Emulsion is a type of drilling fluid which is used during drilling and oil extraction operations in an oil field. There are two main types of oilfield emulsion which are used in the oil and gas industry, i.e., oil in water emulsion, also known as oil emulsion mud and water in Oil emulsion, also known as oil base mud.

Petropedia explains Oilfield Emulsion

An emulsion is the mixture of two or more substances which are normally not mixable with each other. In normal scenario when oil and water are brought in contact, oil being less denser than water floats on top of water, but when shaken vigorously, it forms an emulsion which can be used as a drilling fluid during oil well drilling operations. Emulsions consist of a continuous phase and a dispersed phase and the boundary between both these phases is known as the interface. Emulsions have cloudy appearance and are unstable and thus do not form spontaneously.

Oil-Water emulsion is a water base drilling fluid in which water is kept in large quantities and oil (maybe crude oil, diesel or synthetic liquids) are kept in very low quantities, just 2% to 5%. This is the reason for saying that water is present as a continuous phase (or in large amount) in such type of emulsion mud and oil is present in the dispersed phase.

The benefit of using such drilling fluid or drilling mud is that because of low quantity of toxic synthetic base oil present in it, this type of drilling fluid is considered safe for the environment and passes the EPA static sheen test and mysid shrimp toxicity tests.

Water in oil emulsion or oil base mud is a drilling mud in which oil is in continuous phase and water is in dispersed phase (2% to 5% quantity). This type of mud has more advantages over water base mud such as increased bore hole stability, prevention of hydration & dispersion of clays, high lubricity that reduces torque, drag and improved drilling conditions. Some disadvantages are that it is expensive than water base mud and have environmental problems.
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