Evaluation of Granite Waste and Silica Flour in Oil Well Cementing

Silica flour is commonly used in oil well cement. It possesses properties that are similar to those in pozzolanic materials, which have good strength properties. The granite coarse also has good strength properties and similar to silica flour. High amount of granite wastes is generated in the granite industry. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibility of using the granite waste as alternative for silica flour in well cementing under high temperature and high pressure. Two cement samples were prepared. The first sample was the base slurry which composed of class G cement + 35% by weight of cement (BWOC) of silica flour. The second slurry composed of class G cement with the optimum concentrations of granite (40% BWOC). The results showed that, granite waste can take the role of silica flour in well cementing. Using granite waste increased the compressive strength by 5.6% compared to silica flour. The Young's modulus of granite waste was smaller than the Young's modulus of silica flour by 3%. Additionally, the porosity of granite waste was also smaller than the porosity of silica flour by 18%.