With officials of the state of Texas earnestly examining the environmental impact of drilling operations, oil and gas companies are eagerly looking for new ways to make their drilling operations and consequent waste disposal more environmentally acceptable. New attention is being focused on potential contamination from drill cuttings and the oil-based drilling fluids that convey them. This is especially true in the Eagle Ford shale play, where high-performance water-based drilling fluids are emerging as a strong alternative to conventional oil based mud alternatives (OBM). New innovations in water-based fluid formulations allow engineers to provide comparable or even better performance than OBM, while mitigating the need for drill cutting disposal. Drill cuttings produced with conventional OBM must be disposed of via off-site land farming methods, as owners of the properties on which drilling has taken place typically forbid operators from burying the drilling waste on their land. This process results […]