Publications

Nowadays, the difficulties in discovering new hydrocarbon reserves had forced the oil and gas explorations to expand to the areas which are more challenging, whereas the proper selection of drilling mud is very crucial to define the success of drilling activity. Conventional diesel oil is still widely used in drilling industries as Oil-based mud (OBM), regardless of its terrible impact on environment. Since Indonesia is still importing OBM base oil, there had been several studies conducted to find the possibilities in vegetables oils as oil-based mud use (Rubiandini et al, 2006 and Priwanza, 2007). Castor oil, which is derived from the Ricinus communis seeds plant, is a new alternative for vegetable-oil based mud that is potential to be developed locally, environmentally friendly, and able to meet the standard requirement of OBM. It has density and viscosity higher than any other vegetable oils. Castor oil has SG of 0.958-0.968 (diesel oil has SG of 0.84 in 60° F (API, 1998) and viscosity of 9.5-11 poise in 68°F (Jamieson, 1943). In some tropical countries, castor oil has been used as a lubricant for heavy machines such as locomotives (Jamieson, 1943).The parameters tested in this study include physical and chemical properties of castor oil (density, boiling point, kinematic viscosity, etc.).The preliminary tests result indicates that castor oil can be used as vegetable oil-based mud in accordance with the API standard and also can become the reference for this vegetable OBM development which is very potential due to its environmentally friendly characteristics, since in some regions in Indonesia such as NTB, NTT, East Java, and Borneo, there have been cultivation of Ricinus communis plants (Firdaus, 2003).Keywords: oil-based mud, vegetable oil-based mud, castor oil