KEY CONCEPTS
•
Drilling operations expose equipment to extreme pressures, high temperatures, abrasive cuttings and constant mechanical stress.
•
Drilling fluids experience all three lubrication regimes during downhole rotation: hydrodynamic lubrication, mixed lubrication and boundary lubrication.
•
As drilling continues to push into deeper, hotter and more extended-reach environments, the demand for advanced tribology-based solutions will only grow.
Meet the Presenters
This article is based on an Industry Insights presented by Mario Ramirez, Madison Dettenhaim and Ashlie Martini on August 12, 2025, titled
Tribology in Action: Enhancing Drilling Efficiency with High-Performance Lubricants. Industry Insights is a monthly virtual event series available for free to STLE members. These events provide a forum for members to collaborate with STLE industry peers and experts on a specific topic who give a brief presentation, then facilitate conversation by asking discussion questions and providing actionable takeaways. For more information, click here.
Mario A. Ramirez holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and a master of science degree in civil engineering from Colombia. He spent 15 years in the field, and oversaw multiple drilling projects in Latin America, the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Eurasia and West Africa, accumulating over 30 years of experience. He has authored more than a dozen papers in the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE) and STLE, and holds several patents. Currently, he is account manager for Latin America for Drilling Specialties Company, a division of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, supporting sales of drilling products and R&D of new lubricants with a focus on tribology science. You can reach him at
ramima@cpchem.com.
Mario A. Ramirez
Born in the heart of the oil and gas industry and surrounded by the sounds of country radio, Madison Dettenhaim was born and raised in Bakersfield, Calif. She earned her degree in chemistry with a concentration in biochemistry from California State University, Bakersfield. With nearly 12 years in the oil and gas industry, Dettenhaim began her career as a field specialist, working with various fluid systems—ranging from high-performance water-based fluids to heavy brine-based systems and one-drum oil-based systems. Currently, she is the North America Account Manager for Drilling Specialties Company, a division of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company based in The Woodlands, Texas.
After four and half years in the field, Dettenhaim transitioned into management, taking on roles as a project engineer overseeing various operations, eventually becoming the field service manager for the Rockies Basin, where she understood the critical role of high-quality drilling fluids with lubricious properties. As operators pushed the limits to drill faster and extend well lengths, Dettenhaim played a key role in evaluating various lubricants, ultimately identifying the most effective solution. You can reach her at
dettem@cpchem.com.
Madison Dettenhaim
Ashlie Martini is professor and chair of the department of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Merced. She obtained her bachelor of science and doctorate degrees from Northwestern University and has been working in the field of tribology for more than 20 years with research results reported in over 200 published papers. She also published a textbook titled “Introduction to Tribology for Engineers.” Professor Martini is an editor of the STLE-affiliated journal Tribology Letters and an associate editor for the STLE-affiliated journal Tribology Transactions and has been the chair of multiple international conferences including the STLE Annual Meeting. You can reach her at
amartini@ucmerced.edu.
Ashlie Martini
From the surface of a drilling rig to the bottom of a horizontal well thousands of feet underground, friction is a constant (and costly) challenge. During the August 2025 STLE Industry Insights discussion, Tribology in Action: Enhancing Drilling Efficiency with High-Performance Lubricants, presenters Madison Dettenhaim, Mario Ramirez and Professor Ashlie Martini explored how tribology principles are reshaping drilling operations. See Meet the Presenters for more information. In this article, they discuss drilling fundamentals, lubrication regimes, stick-slip behavior, case studies and new research that ties laboratory testing to field performance.
Drilling operations and tribology
Drilling operations expose equipment to extreme pressures, high temperatures, abrasive cuttings and constant mechanical stress. “Equipment is exposed to extreme pressures, extreme temperatures and abrasive environments,” Dettenhaim explains. “Friction and wear are a major concern in the industry.” Tribology provides a scientific foundation for understanding these wear mechanisms, from abrasive wear caused by drilling solids, to adhesive wear from metal contact, to corrosive wear induced by chemical exposure.
A wellbore is a hole drilled to explore and extract natural resources. Wellbore lubrication is one of the most critical tribological applications in drilling, especially as operators move into increasingly long horizontal sections. In the Americas, Dettenhaim notes, drilling anywhere from two to five mile laterals has become common. In these extended-reach wells, the drill string contacts the wellbore wall for long stretches, increasing torque, drag and the risk of differential sticking.
Drilling fluids play a central role in managing these challenges. “The drilling fluid absorbs and dissipates heat, prevents thermal damage to the tools, transmits hydraulic energy, maintains wellbore stability and decreases coefficient of friction,” Dettenhaim says. As the drill bit generates cuttings, the fluid transports them to surface in a continuous circulation loop. When enhanced with specialty lubricants, drilling fluids dramatically reduce torque and drag, which are key performance goals for operators trying to drill faster and reach total depth reliably.
Lubrication regimes
To understand how lubricants function downhole, the presenters turn to a foundational tribology concept: the Stribeck curve. Professor Martini explains that drilling fluids experience all three lubrication regimes during downhole rotation:
• Hydrodynamic lubrication (low friction; full fluid film separation)
• Mixed lubrication (partial contact; rising friction and wear)
• Boundary lubrication (asperity-to-asperity contact; highest friction and most severe wear)
“All three lubrication regimes may occur during drilling as the downhole rotation speed varies,” Martini notes. When rotation slows or load increases, the system tends toward boundary lubrication. This is also where stick-slip occurs, which is one of drilling’s most disruptive forms of friction.
Stick-slip
Stick-slip causes the drill string to alternately seize (stick) and then jerk forward (slip), creating intense vibration, torque spikes and impact loading. “Stick-slip is a big issue while drilling,” Ramirez says. “It’s going to cause vibration downhole and damage valuable tools.” The sawtooth torque pattern has been well documented in field data, and Ramirez has replicated the same behavior in laboratory testing.
Ramirez explains: “In the ‘stick’ phase, the pipe is in boundary lubrication when the pipe is in contact with the wellbore because of the high coefficient of friction.” As rotation increases, friction decreases toward a minimum and the system transitions into slip. “But this phenomenon is repeated again,” he adds. Reducing stick-slip requires improving boundary lubrication performance so the system transitions out of “stick” more easily and spends more time in mixed or hydrodynamic regimes. Better lubrication chemistry can directly reduce damaging mechanical instability.
Challenges in measuring friction in drilling fluids
Traditional oil and gas friction testing equipment has not kept pace with modern tribology. “In the oil and gas industry, the study of the coefficient of friction is still an art,” Ramirez emphasizes. Tools like the extreme pressure (EP) lubricity meter, which were developed decades ago, do not reflect downhole behavior well.
Dettenhaim uses MTM tribometers and collaborates with University of California, Merced to design custom test configurations suitable for drilling fluids, which contain solids, emulsions and complex chemistries. “The drilling fluid is a whole another animal,” Martini notes. “We had to modify the standard setup to regularly replenish the fluid in the contact.”
This more rigorous testing provides the data needed to design additives that work not just in controlled environments, but in a wellbore full of drill cuttings, weighting materials and irregular contact conditions.
Why tribology is the future of drilling lubricants
Despite its importance, tribology is still unfamiliar to many drilling engineers. “Most customers and professionals that I interact with have never heard of the term,” Dettenhaim shares. But she’s hoping to change that through her collaboration with Martini and others.
Ramirez echoes this sentiment, noting the long-term impact on sustainability. Improving lubricants improves efficiency, reducing rig time, lowering fuel consumption, decreasing nonproductive time and minimizing equipment wear. “One of the major ways to improve sustainability is by improving efficiency,” he explains. “Working in the direction of better lubricants, we are working in that direction.”
As drilling continues to push into deeper, hotter and more extended-reach environments, the demand for advanced tribology-based solutions will only grow. The combination of laboratory science, field validation and collaborative industry-academia research showcased in this article underscores the progress being made and the opportunities ahead.
You can reach TLT editorial coordinator Nicole Gleeson at ngleeson@stle.org.