Abstract: In the last decades, the problem of perforation
damage has been considered as the major factor for the
reduction of oil productivity. Underbalance perforation is
considered as one of the best means to minimize or overcome
this problem. By maintaining wellbore pressure lower than
formation pressure, perforation damage could be minimize or
eliminated. This can be achieved by the use of nontraditional
lightweight completion fluid. This paper presents the effect of
natural clay in formulating nontraditional completion fluid to
ensure successful perforation job and increase of production
rate. Natural clay is used as homogenizing agent to create a
stable and non-damaging low-density completion fluid.
Results indicate that the addition of natural clay dramatically
increase the stability of the final fluids. In addition, field test
has shown that the application of nontraditional completion
fluid increases oil production by three folds.