Slug Mud: It is heavy mud which is used to push lighter mud weight down before pulling drill pipe out of hole. Slug is used when pipe became wet while pulling out of hole.
Normally, For example, current mud weight is 10 PPG. Slug weight should be about 11.5 to 12 PPG.
Normally, slug is pumped to push mud down approximate 200 ft (+/2 stands) and slug volume can be calculated by applying a concept of U-tube (see a figure below)
Volume of slug can be calculated by this following equation:
This equation expresses that the higher slug volume, the deeper of dry in drill pipe is met. As per the above equation, length of dry pipe can be substituted by 200 ft.
In normal practice, slug volume pumped to clean drill pipe is around 15-25 bbl depending on drill pipe size. Moreover, it also depends on situations because sometime mud in annulus side may be heavier than measured MW due to cutting, drilling solid contaminated in mud, hence more slug volume is needed.
