Patent ID: 8322420

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a wellbore having a cased section and an uncased section, wherein the wellbore contains water-based drilling fluids containing drilled solids; introducing a first water-based displacement fluid comprising a shale inhibitor into the wellbore to displace the water-based drilling fluids and drilled solids from the uncased section of the wellbore; then introducing a second water-based displacement fluid into the wellbore to displace fluids within the cased section of the wellbore; then running a sand control screen assembly through the first water-based displacement fluid, the second water-based displacement fluid or a combination thereof, to a selected depth within the uncased section of the wellbore to facilitate a gravel packing operation; and then introducing a gravel pack slurry containing gravel and a viscosified carrier fluid into the wellbore to facilitate gravel packing of the uncased section.