Ecofriendly Lubricant Solutions for the Exploration and Exploitation of Oil and Gas Resources

Readily biodegradable, virtually non-toxic, and highly ecofriendly lubricants were developed using waste vegetable oil to explore and exploit oil and gas resources without causing any damage and/or degradation to other terrestrial and marine resources. The low-cost raw material and the significantly lower development cost of waste vegetable oil-based ecofriendly lubricants compared to pure vegetable oil-based ecofriendly lubricants currently available in the market will provide higher economic benefits and much better return on investment. The performance of the lubricants was evaluated using the industry standard lubricity test method and apparatus for comparison with the performance of traditional lubricants. Their lubricating performances were also compared with a commercial green lubricant. Experimental results indicate that the newly developed lubricants provide desirable and comparable performance with respect to an equivalent commercial lubricant, and thus, demonstrate their suitability as the viable substitutes for this lubricant and for other similar products. Some lubricants showed good lubricating potential in a clay-based mud system, some in muds containing monovalent salts, and some for all of them due to the variation in the lubricants’ composition. However, all of them showed good lubricating performance in their application domains, which, therefore, demonstrates their technical significance in reducing the torque and drag, while drilling.