Project Info

Lost Circulation Study

Lost circulation costs a phenomenal amount of money to combat while drilling wells. For example, in geothermal energy development, a recent paper showed that up to 7% of a 50 MW plant’s costs can be attributed to the lost circulation encountered during drilling operations. We will be starting a new project for a major national oil company on cataloging the type and performance of commercially available lost circulation materials using the various fluids lab equipment located in the Apache Lab in Marquez Hall.

More Information

https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/GeoConf/papers/SGW/2017/Cole.pdf

http://petrowiki.org/Lost_circulation

http://petrowiki.org/PEH:Drilling_Problems_and_Solutions

Grand Engineering Challenges: Develop carbon sequestration methods

Student Preparation

Qualifications

A good work ethic, self starter, safety minded, curiosity, a penchant for handling lab equipment and conducting experiments, and patience as some of the lab experiments may be tedious.

Time Commitment

40 hours/month

Skills/Techniques Gained

Lab safety skills
Environmental protocol techniques
Experimental procedures
Equipment usage
Drilling operations

Mentoring Plan

I, along with my PhD student, would work with the student as we develop the workflow together. We will map out the procedures along with the student and provide resources. We will have regular meetings to go over progress, issues, and improvements.