Water based drilling fluid is developed using bentonite, guar gum, polyanionic cellulose PAC and gum
arabic. The rheological behavior and the filtration loss property of each drilling fluid developed is
measured using API recommended standard procedures. The developed drilling fluid combinations are
hot rolled using Hot Air Rolling Oven and Aging Cells for 16 hours to study temperature stability of the
drilling fluid additives. We observed that the developed drilling fluid system has rheological properties
where fluid loss control is required for minimum performance in oil well drilling. We also noticed that
Guar gum shows the highest gel strength and the most stable rheological properties with very bad
filtration loss property while gum arabic had unstable rheological properties with stable gel strength
and good filtration loss property. These results show that water based drilling fluid can be used as a
replacement for other additives as it is readily available in commercial quantity in the northern part of
Nigeria.