Drilling Industry Glossary

Mud Type

Mud type indicates the type of drilling mud used. There are 3 types of muds:
(1) Water-based muds are the most commonly used of the mud systems. The base fluid may be fresh water, seawater, brine, saturated brine, or a formate brine.
(2) Oil-based muds are formulated with diesel, mineral oil, or low-toxicity linear olefins and paraffins.
(3) Synthetic-based muds are nonaqueous, water-internal (invert) emulsion muds in which the external phase is a synthetic fluid rather than an oil. Synthetic-based muds were developed to make drilling muds more environmentally acceptable for offshore use. Different mud type determines the listing of mud property input and subsequent calculation procedures.