HDD machinery

GN Solids Control has successfully delivered an advanced HDD Mud Recycling System to a prominent drilling company in the Middle East. This achievement underscores GN Solids Control’s commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions for the drilling mud industry. The system, a 2-tank configuration, is designed to efficiently manage drilling mud and ensure optimal performance during Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) operations, as well as other trenchless activities like Trenchless Boring Machine (TBM) projects, piling, and pipe jacking.

One of the key components of this system is the inclusion of a shale shaker, which plays a pivotal role in the initial phase of drilling mud processing. It effectively removes coarse particles and solids from the drilling mud, enhancing its longevity and performance. To further enhance the mud quality, GN Solids Control has integrated a combo-type mud cleaner, facilitating a 3-stage separation process. This step ensures that even finer particles are efficiently removed, resulting in mud that meets the stringent requirements of HDD operations.

To ensure a seamless workflow, the system is equipped with feeding pumps that efficiently transport the mud through various stages of the recycling process. A powerful mixing pump is also incorporated into the system, enabling the addition of necessary additives and chemicals to optimize the drilling mud’s properties. This comprehensive approach to mud management ensures that the drilling process remains efficient and cost-effective.

Moreover, GN Solids Control has integrated an electric control system that oversees and regulates all aspects of the recycling system. This automation simplifies operation and allows for precise control over mud properties and system parameters, reducing the margin for error and enhancing overall productivity.

GN Solids Control’s dedication to providing tailored solutions for HDD and trenchless drilling operations demonstrates their expertise and commitment to the industry. With this newly delivered HDD Mud Recycling System, the Middle East drilling company can expect improved drilling performance, reduced environmental impact, and increased efficiency, ultimately contributing to the success of their projects and their reputation in the industry.

GN Solids Control Desanding unit provide economic solution to treat the dirty mud generated from trenchless projects, like Bored Piling Slurry desanding, TBM slurry treatment, HDD mud recycling, as well as water well drilling mud treatment, and so on.

This week, GN Solids Control finished 4 packages mud cleaning unit for an Asia client. The mud cleaning units will be used for desanding at trenchless and pipe jacking projects. There are 2 models included in the 4 packages mud cleaning unit.

There are 2 packages of GNMS-1500D desanding plan. The handling capacity of the GNMS-1500D unit is up to 1500GPM. The major separation equipment is double coarse shale shaker GNZS707, which is a double deck shale shaker for coarse solids separation. After pre-separation shale shaker, there are number 2 desander cone with size 16 inch for big flow mud treatment.

Another 2 packages desanding unit is smaller capacity, the model is GNMS-1000D. The handling capacity is 1000GPM. The pre-separation shale shaker model is GNZS705. After shale shaker, the desander cone size is 10 inch with quantity 2.

GN Solids Control utilize high quality PU material desander cones for longer lifetime. The separation shake screen is made by 100% PU or by steel with big opening. Clients choose the right screen opening to reach the separation result.

Besides the 1000GPM and 15000GPM mud desanding plant, GN Solids Control is capable to make other smaller size and bigger size mud recycling and desanding unit, it includes but not limited to below models:

Some small Desanding Plants designed and made by GN Solids Control:
Desanding Plant model GNMS-200D, the design Capacity is 200GPM, 50m³/h.
Desanding Plant model GNMS-500D, the design Capacity is 500GPM, 120m³/h.
Desanding Plant model GNMS-1000D, the design Capacity is 1000GPM, 240m³/h.

Some big Desanding Plants designed and made by GN Solids Control:
Desanding Plant model GNMS-360M, the design Capacity is 360 m³/h
Desanding Plant model GNMS-500M, the design Capacity is 5000 m³/h
Desanding Plant model GNMS-1000M, the design Capacity is 1000 m³/h
Desanding Plant model GNMS-2000M, the design Capacity is 2000 m³/h
Desanding Plant model GNMS-3000M, the design Capacity is 3000 m³/h

A customized drilling mud processing system is is ready for shipment at GN Solids Control Beijing factory. It mud cleaning system is composted of a mud cleaner, a mixing hopper, and a centrifugal pump for mud mixing and transfer.
The drilling mud cleaning and mixing system is designed and made by client’s request to suit his drilling mud situation. Normally, mud cleaner is equipped after a pre-seperation shale shaker. But in this mud cleaning system, the first separation equipment is mud cleaner.

Drilling Mud Cleaner

Drilling Mud Cleaner

The reason why the client do not use shale shaker is that, they said the solids content in the mud is not much high. And mostly are fine solids. In this case, the drilling mud can be separated by mud cleaner directly. It is to save cost. As once the shale shaker is running, clients need to replace shaker screen periodically. It is a continue cost for operation. While delete the shale shaker, the system can meet client’s request. It can save the cost of shale shaker, and furthermore, the can reduce wearing spare parts shaker screen cost.

But if the solids content is high, or the particle side is big, which is over the hydracyclone separation point and its mud handing capacity, it is better to use a shale shaker before the mud cleaner. At one hand, the shale shaker can reduce the flow rate which feed to the mud cleaner. At another hand, after the shale shaker separation, the solids content will be reduced, and the big size particle are total removed based on the shaker screen API size and cut point. It can increase the hydraucyclone separation efficient, and also to avoid the fast wear out the hydraucyclones. 10 inch desander cone and 4 inch desilter cone are the most popular cyclone sizes used for drilling fluids separation system. Operator can choose the to use only desander cone or desilter cone, or both based on the mud condition and their budgetary. Desander and / or desilter cone quality depends on the handling capacity of the whole system.

Drilling Mud Centrifuge

Drilling Mud Centrifuge

Feeding pump for mud cleaner is centrifugal pump. The centrifugal feed pump is located on tank slope for compact design and for maximize the total tank usable volume.

After the mud recycling and mixing system, a drilling mud decanter centrifuge is used for fine solids separation. As there will be more and more fine and ultra fine solids after some circulation of the system. Decanter centrifuge will be used to reduce the mud weight.

GN Solids Control is one of the well-known International Brand for drilling Mud Solids Control System & Drilling Waste Management system. GN Solids Control offers the one stop solution for Solids Control treatment of oil gas drilling, CBM drilling, HDD, and water well drilling as well as the construction drilling mud treatment etc.

Nearly all drilling mud processing equipment containers shaker screen separation. Replacement shaker screen is a major wearing spare parts for drilling mud system. And it is a big and continue cost. GN Solids Control is specialized in high quality replacement shaker screen for various popular shaker models. GN Solids Control has his own R&D department for shale shaker screens. Clients can also contact GN Solids Control to make customized shaker screen.

Most solids control equipment manufacturer only make some kinds of processing equipment. Like some companies make shale shaker, mud cleaner and agitators, but they are not capacity to make decanter centrifuge or cuttings dryers. Some companies are only capacity to make centrifuges for various industries, they cannot make solids control separation equipment, like shale shaker, mud cleaner, degasser, etc…While some companies are only make pumps, they cannot make separation equipment. And there are some companies only make mud tanks, they are not capacity to make solids control separation equipment by themselves.

GN Solids Control is focusing on full line solids control equipment for various drilling mud. GN Solids Control is specialized in drilling mud liquid and solids separation. All the separation equipment are made by GN Solids Control. In this case, GN Solids Control knows more about the separation equipment, and can offer more reasonable proposal.

Furthermore, electrical control system is another essential point for separation equipment, especially VFD smart control panels for decanter centrifuges. GN Solids Control has his own electrical control department. GN Solids Control electrical engineering business department has comprehensive ability to provide solution for explosion-proof electrical control. GN is able to provide the electric control system, explosion-proof electrical enclosure design and development, fabrication, site installation, program debugging, and other services.

GN Explosion Proof Certification: GN Solids Control electrical control products have been certified by China National standard CNEx, International standard IECEx and European standard ATEX certificate, which enable GN’s products to meet high level market requirements.

GN Solids Control makes Mud Recycling System and desanding plants for construction Trenchless Engineering Companies, like for HDD (horizontal directional drilling), TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine), Microtunnelling, piling, etc…

GN Solids Control has more than 10 years of experience in the design and manufacture of mud recovery systems, especially in trenchless projects with multi-function and compact design to cater for different demands and applications from clients. According to the different requirements from users, and jobsite situations, GN Solid Control can provides different configurations of mud recovery system and desanding plant to meet the requirements of different working conditions. There are usually two types of mud purification systems suitable for trenchless construction: one is sand removal unit with cyclone purification system, we usually call it desanding plant. And the other type of design is self-contained mud recovery system.

The desanding plant with hydro cyclone purification system occupies a small footprint, and is economical and affordable. The system is composed of a hydrocyclone and a double deck shale shaker, both of which are installed on a small mud tank. The sand removal cyclone purification system is a two-stage separation device, and its function is to remove coarse particles from drilling mud. The desanding plant is mainly used in projects that can accept larger particle size solid drilling mud, such as Microtunnelling, piling, and so on.

The high standard self-contained mud recovery system developed by GN Solid Control is composed of four stage separations: shale shaker for coarse cuttings separation, 10 inch desander cone separation, 4 inch desilter cone separation, and decanter centrifuge for ultra-fine solid separation. The mud tank of the self-contained mud recovery system has a bigger storage volume to store the purified drilling mud. At the same time, it also has more tank surface space to arrange more separation equipment. Customer can also choose a centrifuge to reduce the ultra-fine solid in the drilling mud and to avoid the enrichment of the ultra-fine solid phase in the drilling mud.

GN Solid Control not only has a standard sizes of mud recycling system and desanding plant, but also provides custom-designed mud recovery system to meet for different demands.

Vertical rotating drilling rig is the normal machine used in piling project. During the drilling process, in order to protect the inner wall of the drilling hole and speed up the process, the operator always chooses to use drilling mud. Then here comes another problem how to reduce cost of the drilling mud thereby to reduce the cost of drilling. The solution is to use mud recycling system to make the drilling mud reusable.
The purpose of the mud recycling system is to remove the large size solid particles in the drilling mud by several separation machines. In regards to the mud recycling system for piling project, it could be a very compact design as separation process is not so complex as that for oil gas drilling. GN solids control is one of the most experienced separation solution providers who could provide the mud recycling system for almost all the industries will use it. GN already developed the standard mud recycling system especially for the piling project.

gn-de-sanding-unit-piling

De-sanding Unit

Strictly speaking, the mud recycling system used in piling should be called de-sanding unit as the drilling depth is normally shallow and most of the solid particles are sand. A de-sanding unit would be enough for processing the separation to get the expected reusable drilling mud.
GN’s de-sanding unit is a compact structure 2 steps separation system. The main equipment in this de-sanding
unit is combined with a 2 layers shaker and cyclone manifold. The double layers shaker is used for coarse solids separation by the under layers and the upper layer screen is for drying the slurry discharged from the cyclone unit. The tank under the shaker unit is used to store the drilling mud. One centrifugal pump is installed in the system for transferring the mud to the cyclone unit for sand separation.
This de-sanding unit could be connected with extra mud tank for larger capacity mud storage. The operators can also equip a jet mixing unit to make an self-contained mud recycling system for other drilling project like HDD and water drilling.

The business of today’s GN has been divided mainly into 2 scopes, one is the normal drilling mud recycling, and the other is the waste management including the waste coming from petroleum related and other separation industries. This blog is mainly talking on the drilling mud recycling system that used in non oil drilling industry.
In oil drilling, the drilling depth and safety regulation request large drilling mud storage and more solids control equipment. Thus, the mud recycling system is always equipped with degasser unit and large volume mud tanks.

hdd-mud-recycling-system

HDD Mud Recycling System

Comparing with the mud recycling for oil industry, the unit for non oil drilling is more compact and less equipment needed.

  • Trenchless/No Dig HDD project – The mud recycling system used in this type drilling is matching with a No dig rig. In some project for long distance pipeline and cables laying underground, it is inconvenient to dig an open groove on the ground as that will interrupt the normal traffic. The trenchless is an ideal choice. The mud recycling system for this project is always consisting of 3 stages separation as shale shaker unit, de-sanding and de-silting cyclone.
  • Piling is the main method to install the bridge supporting pillar. A de-sanding unit with a small tank would be enough to remove out the coarse solids from the drilling fluids. The de-sanding unit is a composition of de-sander cyclone and shaker unit that can separate out the solids with size of 40-70 microns. Piling does not request very clean mud; less equipment involved makes the recycling unit for piling is very compact.
  • GN also can manufacture the mud recycling system for tunneling project. For micron tunneling, GN has model available with capacity of 120m3/h, 240m3/h and 500m3/h. For large flow rate request, GN has the mud plant GNMS -3600M with treating capacity of 3600m3/H.
tbm-slurry-separation-plant

Tunneling Mud De-sanding Plant

Besides, GN’s mud recycling system can also be used in water well drilling, coal bed methane exploration, dredge slurry separation and the mining flushing waster cleaning process.

Most of the horizontal directional drilling mud system is not equipped with decanter centrifuge unit as by using the 3-phase separation system including shale shaker, de-sander and de-silter unit, it can work good enough for removing the solids from drilling fluids. Centrifuge is relative high cost, which is also a reason the drilling contractor doesn’t equip it in the mud system.

gn compact centrifuge system

GN Centrifuge System

However, for some high request drilling condition, the driller may use the heavy mud for better drilling performance. Sometimes the drillers add the certain chemicals to make the drilling mud heavier so that the mud can better protect the wall of the drilling hole. If the driller went to drill another well, the heavy chemicals need to be separated, and then the centrifuge could be used to do this job. In some other conditions, after many times recycling of the drilling mud, there is much ultra fine solid particles that cannot be removed by the shaker and cyclone unit, and then the centrifuge unit is needed.
GN Solids Control has nearly 10 years in fabricating the drilling mud system for HDD projects. This type mud system need to be compact structure and easy for transportation. See the picture in this article, both the de-sander and de-silter unit are equipped with under flow shaker for drying the discharged solids. The shakers used are 2-layer screen design. The bottom layer screen is used as primary shaker and upper layer screen to dry the discharges out from the cyclone units. This design greatly reduces the footprint of the mud system. And all tank top surface equipment are pre-installed on a frame with same base dimension as storage tank. When transport the mud system, the shaker and decanter centrifuge units could be removed by lifting the frame for fast disassemble. With the frame, the equipment could be easily transported by flat bed trailer.
GN can provide both standard and customized HDD mud system for clients. Just send us your request, and then you will get a satisfying and cost effective solution.

One set 500GPM drilling mud recycling system was sent to Middle East for water well drilling. Besides the drilling mud recycling system for oil drilling, they also need drill water well for daily requirement for clean water. For the person living in Middle East, water is more important than oil. Sounds like a joke, but this is reality.
Water well is not so deep like the oil well, and the drilling cost is also very cheap comparing with oil drilling. However, both this 2 drilling processes need the drilling mud recycling system to speed up the drilling process and protect the drill bit. Water well drilling may not need the used drilling mud to be separated very clean as it is not requested strictly. Just like this 500GPM unit shipped to Middle East, it is a very compact
model, while it has all the necessary separation equipment.

2015.12.24_water_well_drilling_mud_system_500gpm

water well drilling mud system

It has one unit shale shaker GNZS703DZ with 3 panel screens which could remove out the solids always larger than 300 microns. This model is with the mud feeder on top of the shaker deck so that this shaker could be much more compact. As the water well drilling is always not so deep, hence, the solids coming out with the drilling mud is always not so hard. In this 500GPM mud recycling system, the de-sander cone is not equipped, but directly the de-silter cone would be used to separate the solids size of around 20 microns.
This 500GPM water well drilling mud system is a standard GN model GNMS-500G with 2 unit centrifugal pumps. One of each is used as feeding pump for the de-silter cyclone, and the other one is used for mud mixing, the mud tank is divided into 2 compartments. It has enough space for clean mud storage.
Though this 500GPM mud system is for water well drilling, it can also be used in other drilling project like HDD. As the working principle is completely the same. The customer killed two birds with only one stone.

For the upcoming no dig show this September in Australia, GN solids control would like to show there one set self-contained 200 GPM drilling mud recycling system for HDD projects. As a leading manufacturer especially for drilling mud recycling equipment, besides the large footprint mud system for oil drilling, GN solids control could also provide compact structure design mud recycling system.
According to the HDD rig mud flow, GN’s economic mud systems are classified as 150/200GPM, 350GPM, 500GPM, 800GPM/1000GPM and 1500GPM. Just like the unit of 200GPM would be shown in Australia, though it is small footprint, it has all necessary functions for drilling mud recycling and mud re-configuration.

2015.6.19 gn 200 gpm compact mud system for hdd (1)

200 GPM HDD Mud System

Below is the equipment list for the 200GPM unit
1. GNZY753-4N shaker and de-silter composition unit which has the functions for first stage primary solids separation and second stage for drying the solid discharged from the 4” cyclones. This unit has a top located buffer box for well back drilling mud feeding, the bottom layer screen of this unit remove the coarse solids, liquid goes through the mesh screen opening and gets down to the storage tank. Pumped by a 15hp centrifugal pump, the liquid was transferred to the de-silter cone for fine solids removing. The upper layer screen with much finer opening would block and separate out the finer solid cuttings.
2. GNSLM20A-110 Jet mud mixer is used for adding the mud chemicals and re-configuration of the drilling mud. The beneath located mud tank was divided into 2 compartments and one of them is used for mixing and storing the active drilling mud. The mixing pump adopted is same with the one for feeding to de-silter cones. That would be much easier for future maintenance and parts replacement. The mixing pump could also be used as discharging pump for transferring the active mud to the rig.

2015.6.19 gn 200 gpm compact mud system for hdd (2)

Compact Design Mud System

GN also has more compact unit for de-sanding, by connecting the de-sanding unit with a customized mud tank, the operator could run the mud recycling system more fit their own project condition. For more information on GN compact mud system, you may contact with GN team without hesitate.