Drilling Fluids shale shaker

The ViST screen shale shaker is a vacuum screen shale shaker utilizing vacuum power. GN Solids Control specially designed it to treat drilling mud in oil and gas drilling. It is work together to recycle the drilling fluids and reduce the drilling waste.

GN Solids Control started to developing the Vacuum Screen Technology since 2017 and owned many pending patent design on it. With the feedback from different jobsites, GN Solids Control keeps updrading its design to make it mode it more stable, less maitenance, and more user friendly. Through the years’ running, GN Solids Control Vacuum Screen Technology proved to be very efficient for recycling drilling fluids.

Based on GN Solids Control standard shale shaker, there is a catch pan installed under the discharge side of the shaker deck. There is a suction pipe with a rubber hose connected to the bottom of the catch pan for collecting the recycled drilling mud. As the sucktion pipe and rubber hose to the catch pan is short in length, GN Solids Control offers extension suction pipe to connecting the shale shaker to the vacuum unit. After that, there are discharge hose from vacuum unit to mud tanks.

And GN Solids Control screen vacuum unit is driven by air, the will be air hose from air compressor or other air suppliers, and feed air for the vacuum screen unit. The compressed air from air compressor or the rig air supply is required to create suction on the last screen surface, pulling additional fluid off the cuttings. It can reduce the liquid on the cuttings by 30-50%.

There must be a set of catch pan with its suction pipe, suction rubber hose and extension rubber hose for connecting to the vacuum unit. If the vacuum screen unit is connecting to 2 shakers or 3 shakers, there must be 2 packages or 3 packages of catch pan with its hoses. One vacuum screen unit only need a rubber hose with its extend discharge hose to mud tanks. And with an air hose to the air compressor or to the rig air supplier.

GN Solids Control finished a ViST vacuum shale shaker package for a drilling company in China. It is a triple shale shaker vacuum screen package, there are 3 linear motion shale shakers with the vacuum driven unit.
The features and advantages of GN Solids Control screen vacuum unit:

1) The 3 linear motion shale shakers with its vacuum unit are allocated on the same skids. It is for fast installation and easy for shipment and movement.

2) With regarding GN vacuum screen unit, the clients can choose to use a vacuum unit to drive 1 shale shaker, 2 shale shakers, and up to 3 shaler  shaker; Or they can choose to use 1 vacuum unit installed together with the shaker and driven a shaker.

3) The model of the linear motion shale shaker is GNZS594J. It is the latest version with advanced design specially for oil field drilling mud separation.

4) And plus, there are Splash shields on the shaker deck. It can prevent the gas, splashed mud, or heart sent out from shale shaker during drilling activities.

Solids Control shale shaker is the 1rst stage separation equipment in drilling mud system. Desander is the 2nd stage solids control equipment. The desilter is the 3rd solids control equipment. The decanter centrifuge is took as the 4th stage solids control equipment. Besides shale shaker is the necessary and pre-separation equipment which is a much in all mud system, clients can choose other solids control equipment according to the jobsite situation and the job site demands.

GN Solids Control is capable to make full package drilling mud processing equipment. Besides offering different models solids control equipment, GN Solids Control is also make customized full package mud system to suit for clients request. GN Solids Control can offer separation equipment and customzied system for oil and gas drilling, as well as non-oil drilling, like horizontal directional drilling, piling, micro tunneling, pipe jacking, etc…

Solids Control shale shaker is the 1rst stage separation equipment in drilling mud system. GN Solids Control just finished 2 sets of triple shale shaker unit for a drilling company in China.

The features of GN Solids Control triple shale shaker unit:


1. There are 3 shale shakers are mounted on a general skid. It is easy and fast for movement and shipment. And clients are easier to install it at drilling mud system. They only need to move and install the triple shaker one time, but not 3 shakers for 3 times.

2. The 3 shale shaker are connected by pipelines for feeding and discharge. And there are valves on the feeding and discharge pipelines. By open and close the valves, the 3 shale shakers can work together as a full function unit, or work separately based on the job site situation.

3. Unlike other suppliers’ shale shaker, GN Solids Control shale shaker can be equipped with a separate vacuum screen unit. One GN Solids Control brand vacuum unit can be connected to 1 or 3 shakers.

The shale shaker can also be used together with hydro cyclone unit to work as desander or desilter mud cleaner.
10 inch and 12 inch cones are commonly used to separate the particle size of drilling fluid from 44 to 74 μm solid particles. The combination of hydrocyclones below 6 inch is called desilter, which is the third phase solid control equipment in drilling operations. 5 inch and 4 inch cones are commonly used to separate the particle size of drilling fluid from 15 to 44 μm solid particles.

According to the size of the handling capacity required, the customer can select several groups of hydrocyclones to form a desander or desilter.

GN Solids Control desander and desilter mud cleaner is widely used for desanding and separation of oil drilling and horizontal directional drilling.

GN Solids Control makes linear motion or dual motion shale shaker for onshore and offshore drilling rigs. This week, GN Solids Control finished 2 shale shakers for an offshore drilling company.

The 2 shale shakers are the most popular models made by GN Solids Control GNZS594. It is a 4-panel single deck shale shaker. It can either make as linear motion or dual motions while apply various vibrating motors.

GN Solids Control shale shaker is equipped with heady duty design shaker deck. The whole shaker deck of GN Solids Control shale shaker is treated by heat treatment. It enable GN shale shakers to suit for G force up to 7.5 G. If for high G drying shaker model, the G force can up to 8.0G.

The shaker deck of GN shale shaker is sealed with patent design sealing rubbers to avoid fine solids bypass and to protection the shaker deck and shaker screens during vibrating. And the patent design shaker deck sealing rubber is easy for installation and replacement.

Another big advantage of GN Solids Control shale shaker is equipped with mechanical deck angle adjustable device. Operators can adjust shaker deck angle while the the shaker is running. They do not need to stop the shakers. And plus, the shaker deck adjustment device is GN Solids Control patent design technology. It is a Synchronous lifting system, it means the shaker users can change shaker deck at either side of the shaker deck, both side with change with the same angle.

And plus, GN Solids Control is also capable to make other separation equipment for offshore drilling, like mud cleaner, decanter centrifuge, degassers, etc…

Besides shale shaker for drilling rig mud system, GN Solids Control is also capacity to make high capacity dewatering vibrating screen shaker, Classification Vibrating Screen shaker and mining vibrating screen shakers with different capacity. For more details, please contact GN Solids Control system branch: GN Separation.

Last week, GN Solids Control compete the production of 10 sets drilling mud shale shaker for an offshore drilling company in China for their international drilling activities. The shale shaker supplied for the project is model GNZS595, which is a 5-panel shale shaker.

Besides the 5-panel shale shaker, GN Solids Control also make various sizes 2-panel shale shaker, 3-panel shale shaker, 4-panel shale shaker, and double deck shale shaker. Mostly, clients prefer the linear motion shale shaker. GN Solids Control is also capable to make dual motion shale shaker. Other shale shaker supplier need to use 3 vibrationg motors to reach the dual motion: Linear and Elliptical Motion. GN Solids Control adapts 2 special design motors, Clients can adjust the motor G force to choose linear motion or Gradual elliptical motion.

GN Solids Control shale shaker is complete with 2 vibrating motors, control panel, weir feeder, composite frame pretension screens, and tool box. There is a smal collection mud underneath the shaker deck, plus, there are side discharge port at the shaker deck. Operators can choose to discharge drilling mud from bottom of shaker deck, or at side of the shaker deck.
Clients can choose any types of GN shale shaker, and combined it with desander cyclone and / or desitler cyclone to run it as desander separation, desilter separator or drilling mud cleaner.

Besides shale shaker, drilling mud agitator is another popular equipment in drilling mud solids control system. Mud agitators are widely used at shale shaker tank, mixing tank, reserve tank, suction tank to avoid mud settle down. Mud Agitator is composed of a driving motor, gearbox reduce, shaft, impeller / impeller, tank bottom stabilizer. Gearbox reduce ratio is important for the agitator performance. If the rotating speed is too slow, the mud may be settle down during and circulation. If the agitator rotating speed is too high, it may cause more fast worn out of the gearbox and may be damage the balance of drilling mud. Normally, the agitator speed should be less than 100RPM.

GN Solids America, which is located in Houston America, is a subsidiary of GN Solids Control. GN Solids Control is a professional manufacturer who is focusing on drilling mud solids control and drilling waste management. Its products covering oil and gas drilling, as well as non-oil drilling, such as water well drilling, horizontal directional drilling, piling, pipe jacking, and other trenchless activities.

GN Solids Control make various types of waste management equipment to treat the oily and non-oil slurry generated from drilling and construction field.

GN Solids America and GN Solids Control Successfully attended 2022  Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston is the largest exhibition in oil and gas field. It takes place every year in May, the same as this year. There are many visitors in oil field coming from middle east, Africa, South America, and other areas. As the effect of covina-virus, internal trip become very difficult. There are restrictions in many countries. OTC is a good chance to meet clients there.

GN Solids America has big warehouse in Houston. Clients can get standard equipment stock equipment and replacement spare parts in Houston warehouse. This yeas, GN Solids America team take below equipment for the exhibition.

1. Screen vacuum unit. The unit is fixed under shale shaker to further recover useful drilling fluids from the drilling cuttings. It is a 100% air driven unit. A GN screen vacuum unit can be connected to 1 or 3 shale shakers.

2. Sludge and solids vacuum pump. It is also a 100% air driven device. It is specially designed for long distance transfer on solids, powder and sludge.

Replacement screens for various brand and models shale shakers. GN Solids Control makes high quality composite frame pretension screens. GN Solids Control can even make customized screens per clients drawing, and packing.

Mud tank is a basic device for drilling mud solids control system. Drilling mud tank looks sample. It seems easy for fabrication. The difficulties lie in design and pipelines to allocate all equipment. It is difficult to design the mud tanks to suit for clients demands on requested separation equipment and mixing system.

As every jobsite has different request for mud tank size, the number of mud tanks, mud tank usable capacity, the layout of mud tanks, and most clients have different request on separation equipment and mixing equipment, they request different models and numbers of shale shaker, desander, desilter, decanter centrifuge, jet mud mixer, pumps, etc… In this case, nearly every mud system is different. It is a big work to make the mud tank system designs and drawings, and need to change the designs and drawings again and again during the communication with clients. It is a huge work to make full package mud tank systems. It has high request on the manufacturers’ capability.

Shale shaker is a basic separation equipment. There are various types of shale shakers, like 3-panel shale shaker, 4-panel shale shaker, single deck shale shaker, double deck shale shaker, etc… Shale shaker is nearly used for all separation system. And it is the 1st stage solids control separation equipment in mud systems.

There is normally a sand trap under the shale shaker. The drilling fluid enters the drilling fluid mud tank system after passing through the shale shaker screen. The sand trap plays a very important role in the daily use of 80 mesh screen cloth or coarser screen cloth.

The bottom of the sand trap should be inclined by 45 ° to promote the sedimentation of large sand particles and rapid discharge outside the tank. The bottom inclined by 45 ° or more has a self-cleaning effect. The sand trap shall not be stirred, but shall enter the lower tank through overflow. Both linear and balanced elliptical motion drilling fluid shale shakers have this technology. Fine cobalt chips generally do not have enough residence time to precipitate. When cheap drilling fluid is used, the grit pump shall pump 1 ~ 2 times every 1H. At present, ultra-fine mesh screen cloth is widely used. Due to the expensive waste treatment cost and environmental concerns, such discharge is not allowed and the cost is limited.

After shale shaker, there are various types of separation equipment, clients can choose per jobsite demands and jobsite situation, like 3-in-1 mud cleaner, desander, desilter, vacuum degasser, middle speed decanter centrifuge, high speed decanter centrifuge, jet mud mixing unit, etc…

Shale shaker and Mud cleaner is the basic separation equipment in drilling mud solids control system. Shale shaker is the 1st stage solids control equipment. It is 1st separation equipment to treat the dirt drilling mud from drill holes. Drilling mud cleaner is used after solids control shale shaker. It is the 2nd and / or 3rd solids control separation equipment.

A set of dual tandem shale shaker and mud cleaner package is ready and will be shipped to a drilling company. Dual tandem shale shaker is widely used at work over rig drilling mud recycling system. The dual tandem shale shaker shipped in this project is a combination of Qty 2 GNZS594F-SHBF shale shaker, a mounting skid, and mud distribution pipelines. All of them have 2 motors on each shale shakers.totally 4 motors for a set dual tandem shale shaker package. GNZS594F-SHBF is the model of single shale shaker. It is a single deck linear motion shale shaker.

GNZS594 is the series code of the shaker model. It means the shaker screen width is 590mm. 4 means 4-panel shale shaker. F is the version of the shale shaker. S means solids control shale shaker. GN Solids Control also offers HG (high G drying) shaker for drilling cuttings management. HB means the shale shaker is equipment with back type mud distribution box. F is the design version of the shale shaker.

The mud cleaner in this system is a 1000GPM combo type 3-1 shale shaker. The model of the combo type mud cleaner is GNZJ594F-S2S12NF. It is a combination of Qty 1 solids control shale shaker GNZS594F, Qty 2 × 10 inch desander cone, and Qty 12 × 4 inch desilter cone. The under flow shale shaker model is GNZS594F. In this case, all spare parts are interchangeable with the first step solids control shale shaker. Clients are easy to stock back up spare parts and replacement shaker screens.

Chinese Lunar New Year holiday is coming in Feb. There weeks, all workshops of GN Solids Control are works with more shifts in order to finish all orders before the big holiday. A full package drilling mud solids control system will be ready soon and dispatch to sea port next week to catch the vessel.

The full package solid control system is designed and made for a European client. The client cooperated with GN Solids Control for many years. It is not the 1rst mud system the clients bought from GN. They have many similar size drilling mud system from GN Solids Control.

Below is the major equipment list of the full package drilling mud solids control system:

1) Shale Shaker. It is the 1rst stage solids control equipment for drilling mud system, and it is the major separation equipment in a drilling mud treatment system. There are 2 sets linear motion shale shaker in the mud system. Some clients will order an extra shale shaker as backup. The shale shaker model is GNZS594F. It is a 4-panel shale shaker. And it is the most hot sale shaker model from GN Solids Control.

2) Mud cleaner. It is normally 1 mud cleaner in a full package mud cleaning system. And in some jobsite, clients will use more shale shaker to replace mud cleaner. It is also called as 3-in-1 cleaner. It is the combination of a shale shaker, desander separator and desilter separator.

3) Lower/middle speed Decanter centrifuge. The model is GNLW452D. It is a 18inch bowl size middle speed centrifuge which is used for barite recovering.

4) High speed decanter centrifuge. After low speed centrifuge, there is a high speed centrifuge GNLW363C in the system for fine solids separation. As after some circulations, there will be more and more ultra fine solids inside the drilling mud, the drilling mud is weighted. High speed centrifuge will be used in this condition to reduce the mud weight.

5) Centrifugal pump. There are 6 centrifugal pumps inside the system for different functions: a desander feed pump, a desilter feed pump, 2 mixing pumps, and supercharging pump for drilling rig mud pump.

GN Solids Control is focusing on the full package of drilling mud processing system. As GN Solids Control makes full line drilling mud processing equipment. They know well about the equipment. GN Solids Control can offer professional proposal of drilling mud treatment system and mud mixing unit. All processing equipment and the tank volume should be match to each other.

For example, if the total shale capacity is max. 160m3/4 or 200m3/h, but the desilter and desilter capacity is 240m3/h. And feeding centrifugal pump and mixing pump are 55kw or above. The system is not reasonable. As the 1rst stage separation equipment, the shale shaker capacity should be bigger than the next step separation equipment. Otherwise, if the mud flow is big, the shale shaker will overflow. Or if the mud flow is small for the shale shaker to handle, but the desander and desilter pump are too big, it will cause pump suction air. And the hydrocyclone separation performance is not good in condition the feed flow is too small. The client need to increase shale shaker capacity, or decrease pump and mud cleaner capacity to suit for the mud pump capacity.

Every jobsite is different. Every client has his preferable. In order to offer a suitable mud system design to suit for the job site situation, as well as client’s special requirements. Below are some questions to let GN Solids Control knows more about clients request.

1) what is the rig horse power of the system for, or what is the mud pump horse power or capacity? The whole mud system handle capacity should suit to the mud pump capacity.
2) What is the total tank volume the client prefer?
3) How many tanks the client prefer?
4) What is the max. Tank size (L × W × H) the client can accept to suit for their local shipping regulations?
5) What processing equipment they prefer to equip inside the system? Shale shaker, mud cleaner, desilter, desilter, mud cleaner, vacuum degasser, decanter centrifuge, etc..Which processing equipment they want?
6) What is the Voltage and hz for the mud system?
7) What is the explosion proof standard, CNEX, ATEX, or international IECEx standard?
8) Additional requirement and any special requirements if there, like do they want trip tank, pill tank, water tank, etc…