WATCHING THE WORLD SMART MUD AND SENSITIVE ENZYMES

With David Knott from London If you suspected a practical joke when you first heard about intelligent pigs, wait until you see what the boffins have in store for us now. Environmental legislation is increasingly preventing use of oil base mud. Most recently, Marathon Oil U.K. Ltd. won a U.K. production license that specified oil base mud cannot be used on the license blocks. The goal is to protect seabirds.

April 19, 1993

2 min read

If you suspected a practical joke when you first heard about intelligent pigs, wait until you see what the boffins have in store for us now.

Environmental legislation is increasingly preventing use of oil base mud. Most recently, Marathon Oil U.K. Ltd. won a U.K. production license that specified oil base mud cannot be used on the license blocks. The goal is to protect seabirds.

Unfortunately, water base mud, the "green" alternative, does not have a performance to match oil base mud. But an Aberdeen chemist thinks he has found the answer with Smart Mud, an emulsion drilling mud that becomes water soluble as soon as it hits the sea.

David Brankling set up Oilfield Chemical Technology Ltd. in Aberdeen to develop novel ideas on mud chemistry. Smart Mud, his first invention, passed the laboratory test stage and is ready for field trials this year.

COCKTAIL

Brankling combined brine and several water soluble components in a cocktail he is naturally not keen to reveal to make an insoluble liquid.

"We can then treat this liquid as if it were numeral oil and produce an emulsion mud in which this insoluble liquid acts as the external phase of the emulsion," he said, "exactly like oil base mud.

"When cuttings coated with Smart Mud are discharged to sea, dilution occurs such that the insoluble phase reverts to water soluble components. These wash free to degrade naturally, leaving an uncontaminated seabed."

BIOSENSORS

Tony Turner, head of Cranfield Biotechnology Centre at Cranfield, U.K., is using enzymes and organisms to detect gases that are hard to monitor and cause problems for the oil and gas industry: phenol vapors, methane, and sulfur and nitrous oxides.

The methane sensor, for example, uses methanotrophic organisms. They metabolize methane, producing chemicals that can be detected by electrochemical sensors, which relay signals to instruments. Enzymes perform a similar task for phenol and oxide detection.

The main problem, said Prof. Turner, is to keep the biosensors alive and detect their by-products, while maintaining contact with the toxic gases. To do this, his team invented a polymer matrix in which the biosensors can live.

"Self-destructing mud and housing for sensitive microbes. Are you kidding?" you might ask. But how many oil and gas companies would sacrifice their intelligent pigs?