XC Polymer
XC POLYMER (XANTHAN GUM) PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY TO OIL PRODUCING COMPANY
XC Polymer (Xanthan Gum) is used as viscosifier in oil well drilling fluid as well as for polymer flooding in oil reservoir is a natural high molecular weight anionic polysaccharide and an important industrial biopolymer manufactured by fermentation process. Due to its unique properties, it is used in a variety of applications, such as food and beverages, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, personal care and cosmetics. Among various applications, the XC polymer based oil well drilling mud dominates around 25% market share of demand of XC Polymer in India as it possesses novel properties and an environmentally friendly nature. In Oil & Gas firms, XC polymer helps in improving crude oil & natural gas production from potential exhausting reserves that can propel industry expansion.
Among the other India is being one of the major consumers of XC polymer for oil well drilling. Currently XC polymer is imported from China and other countries. Indian oil producing companies such as ONGC and Oil India alone import around 2000 metric tons of XC Polymer (drilling grade) from China, Indonesia and other countries every year for drilling purpose. The qualities of the imported XC Polymer is failed to meet the specific standard requirement of oil companies. Hence, oil companies are in the position to apply more quantity of XC polymer to achieve desired Viscosity in drilling mud. Hence, research team at OTBL with research partner TERI has started its work on development of bio-based XC polymer through fermentation process.
TERI’s Industrial Biotechnology Program has initiated its bacterial based XC Polymer research in the year 2014. After extensive experimental studies, the XC Polymer product has been tested in Oil India Chemical Lab, Duliajan and ONGC, Institute of Drilling Technology, Dehradun and passed all the parameters specified for drilling grade (American Petroleum Institute specification -API). Based on the successful outcome, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India has sanctioned the project under ATGC funding scheme to upscale the XC Polymer production in 13000 L fermenter followed by field trial test and validation of XC Polymer product in Oil well drilling. The scale up production of XC polymer was carried out in 100 L, 300 L, 1000 L and 13,000 L fermenter under pre-optimized conditions.
The produced xanthan gum/XC Polymer has internally tested in TERI biopolymer laboratory as per the API standard specification and again validated in Institute of Drilling Technology (IDT) ONGC, Dehradun and passed all the parameters specified for drilling mud and found to conform to ONGC Corporate Specifications for XC Polymer.
The developed XC polymer/xanthan gum was tested in drilling of three oil wells KLDKD, KLDLO and WDBD at ONGC, Ahmedabad Asset, Gujarat during 7th June, 2023 to 20th August, 2023. The wells depth were in the range of 1678 m to 1838 m. The field trial results are found successful and thus achieved TRL level 8. Further to commercialize the developed product, OTBL has come up with Detailed Feasibility Report (DFR) for the creation of Production plant of XC Polymer (10 tons/day).