The ever-expanding Formate Technical Manual (aka the Formate Bible) has grown once again. This time with a whole section dedicated to formate brines's compatibility with shales.

Latest figures show that after just seven years of full production, formate brines have helped deliver close to 90% of estimated recoverable reserves from Huldra and Tune, two North Sea HPHT gas condensate fields.

Cesium formate brine delivers exceptional reservoir visualisation benefits by improving the acquisition and interpretation of the data generated by acoustic, resistivity and nuclear logging tools run on LWD and wire line.

OMV has published two papers on the development and successful use of formate brines as reservoir drilling and completion fluids in the Miano and Sawan high-temperature gas fields located in the Sindh area of Pakistan.

In a concerted drive to increase its non-associated gas production, Saudi Aramco has engaged in a lengthy campaign of drilling slim-hole wells with long horizontal sections through Khuff and Pre-Khuff gas reservoirs.

A DOE-funded research programme into deep drilling optimisation has revealed that low-solids drilling fluids based on cesium formate brine can improve rates of penetration (ROP) by 100% under high-pressure conditions.

“Logging while drilling (LWD) data using cesium formate-based fluids may lead to a more accurate net reservoir definition and better geo-models,” says Erik Sandtorv Pedersen, Petrophysicist at StatoilHydro.

DensiCalc is a newly updated density calculator from Cabot Specialty Fluids that converts surface density to equivalent brine density, calculates average density of wellbore fluid and the hydrostatic pressure generated for any given cesium/potassium brine.

Everything you wanted to know about formates is now collected together in this extensive technical manual. Existing research, new research, field experience and much more. Download your copy now!

WorldOil covers StatoilHydro’s achievement of 13 HPHT wells drilled and 20 completed using cesium formate.

Halide brines vs. formate brines. Safety is an important factor to consider in brine choice.