Bigger. More tanks. A riser. Let's talk about the things that make a deep-water rig circulating system different than a traditional land setup.

Matt and Justin dive into circulating systems, going over the process of where the mud starts and where it ends (spoiler alert it involves the Flowline).

You’re about to come out of the hole. Is the mud in good shape? Should you treat now or just wait until you’re back on bottom? Justin and Matt discuss.

Flipping things around from last week, what are things to think about when you are drilling with brine and decide to make the change to oil-based mud?

Consider a scenario where you are losing valuable oil-based mud while drilling. What are some of the risks to swapping to brine to reduce your losses?

In this episode of the Flowline, Justin finds himself hunting down students at this year’s AADE Fluids conference to bring onto the podcast. Herson Cruz and Armando Lopez from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology sit down and have a quick rapid-fire session discussing life as a Petroleum Engineering student in today’s environment. Both Herson and Armando are eager to begin their careers and set an excellent example for the younger generation.

Different brines have different properties based on a number of factors. In some cases, blending them provides a cost-effective solution - but only if they are compatible. Matt and Justin break down what to consider when using multiple brines in the same operation.

In this episode, Justin sits down with David Rathgeber, a Ph.D. candidate at Montana Tech and SPE Student Chapter President at this year's AADE Fluids Conference. 

David shares his journey as a Ph.D. student studying the relationship between hole cleaning and drilling performance. Specifically, David is focusing on designing a multi-phase fluid flow system to study the effects on drill pipe rotation and cutting transport in a horizontal well using a non-Newtonian fluid-based drilling fluid.