Drilling fluid loss during drilling operation is undesirable, expensive and potentially hazardous problem.
Nasiriyah oil field is one of the Iraqi oil field that suffer from lost circulation problem. It is known that Dammam, um-Radoma, Tayarat, Shiranish and Hartha are the detecting layers of loss circulation problem. Different type of loss circulation materials (LCMs) ranging from granular, flakes and fibrous were used previously to treat this problem.
This study presents the application of rice as a lost circulation material that used to mitigate and stop the loss problem when partial or total losses occurred.
The experimental work included preparing drilling fluid, which is selected to be water based mud. Amount of loss for rock samples was measured where the percentage of losses of drilling mud were 46.25% and 96.96% as well as the percentage of improvement in curing of lost circulation were calculated after rice adding. Rice materials addition was done by tow stages: a) Adding 24 Ib/bbl of fine rice and 1 Ib/bbl of course rice gave improvement in curing from 30.67% to 100%. b) Adding 24 Ib/bbl of fine rice and 6 Ib/bbl of course rice gave an improvement in curing equal to 92.12%.