Drilling mud Equipment

screw conveyor is the most popular transfer device for drilling cuttings transfer at oil and gas drilling rigs. There are many types of screw conveyor, but U- type is most common type for oil and gas drillings application. GN Solids Control can make fixed speed screw conveyor and manual adjustable speed screw conveyor.

Furthermore, GN Solids Control can also make VFD control panel for fixed speed screw conveyor. The explosion proof standard can be fully CNEX, IECEx or ATEX Zone 1 and Zone 2 Rated and suits for 460V/60HZ 3 Phase, 480V/60HZ 3 Phase, 380V/HZ 3 Phase, or suits for customized power system. Clients confirm voltage and HZ before order.

GN Solids Control makes screw conveyor with auger diameter vary from 10 inch to 18 inch (10 inch, 12 inch, 14 inch, 16 inch and 18 inch). And the screw conveyor length can vary from 12 ft to 48ft (12 ft, 24 ft, 36 ft and 48 ft) as standard model. Each auger are combined with standard length of 12ft per section. For other customized diameter and transfer length, clients can contact GN Solids Control for customization.

As screw conveyor is rotation equipment, there must be necessary safety protections to meet HSE standard and to protect job site operators.

Firstly, the top of screw conveyor will be covered and sealed by metal plate or by gratings. From one hand, it can prevent big matters fall down inside the screw conveyor which may broke the auger impellers. Secondly, it can protect people figure or foot from touch the screw conveyor while the auger rotation.

Secondly, GN Solids Control can equip Safety Grab Wires all long the auger length and ESD Devices (emergency stop device) to start and stop the control panel in case of emergency.

GN Solids Contol can offer Audio / visual alarm system on auger control panel which will be automatically activated once the power is switched on followed by the actual auger startup with a safety delay time. Audio / visual alarm system to be in the OFF mode after some time once the auger starts operation.

 

5 sets of high speed big bowl decanter centrifuge start to service at a power plant for dewatering application. The model of the 5 sets big bowl decanter centrifuge for dewatering is GNLW454E. It is a 18 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge specialled designed for waste water treatment.

Compared with normal big bowl decanter centrifuge, GNLW454E has a bigger ratio of bowl diameter and bowl length. The ratio is up to 4. It means the slurry will go through a longer separation path while going through the bowl. So the liquid can will be clean while be discharged, and the solids phase will be more drier.

The working principle of the decanter centrifuge is as follows: the decanter centrifuge bowl and the screw conveyor rotate at the same direction and at high speed. But the rotating speed of bowl and screw conveyor is not the same. In this case, there will be a certain differential speed between centrifuge bowl and screw propeller. And the differential speed is at the same direction with centrifuge bowl and screw impeller rotation.

The material is continuously introduced into the inner cylinder of the screw conveyor through the feed pipe, and enters the bowl after acceleration. The lighter liquid phase forms an inner liquid ring, which overflows the bowl continuously from the large-end overflow port of the bowl, and is discharged, out of the bowl through the liquid discharge port at another end.

Besides GNLW454E 18 inch decanter centrifuge, GN Solids Control also has other sides centrifuge models for various applications.

9 inch decanter centrifuge: GNLW223, GNLW224 series
14 inch decanter centrifuge: GNLW363, GNLW364 series
18 inch decanter centrifuge: GNLW452, GNLW453, GNLW454 series
22 inch decanter centrifuge: GNLW553 series
30 inch decanter centrifuge: GNLW764 series
Besides decanter centrifuge, GN Solids Control makes dewatering unit, oil water separator, shale shaker, mud cleaner, and other separation equipment.

GN Solids Control can design and make waste water treatment systems. Oil water separator unit can be used together with inclined plate clarifier. The function is to settle down small content of soil and sands, separate oil and water for recycling and reuse. It can be used to replace skimmer on the oil field.

For example, GN oil water separators can “Run-off” water from the rig activities is directed by the rig drains and collected in the concrete pit under shale shaker. The contaminated water generated from the activities is then pumped into the skimmer tank or inclined plate clarifier (ICP) by using the vacuum sludge pump or diaphragm pump to facilitate the separation process by gravity between the water and any free oil contaminate.

There are many inclined plates inside the inclined plate clarifier (ICP) which increase the settlement area, accelerate the settle down of soil inside the oil slurry mixture liquid, and increase the waste water discharge capacity. Liquid will flow to oil water separator device next to the ICP for getting oil and water. There is a small auger and a small diaphragm pump underneath the inclined plate clarifier (ICP) to clean out the settle down soil at the tank bottom periodically.

Once the process has been completed, the oil is transferred to the oil tank in the oil water separator skid, likewise for the clean water which goes to water tank on the same skid; the separated oil and water are then pumped into the other oil or water tanks at rig sites or at job sites. There are level gauge with its control on oil tank and water tank for high / low level control. When the level is high, the gauge control will start the pump to transfer the oil / water outside. When the level is low, the gauge control will stop the pump.

The capacity of GN waste water treatment unit is 50 m3 per hour.
Finally, the water and oil are ready to be reused back into the mud and rig operations (cleaning, dilution, mixing, etc)

GNLW363 FHD centrifuge is a Full Hydraulic Drive decanter centrifuge. It is designed to remove low specific gravity solids from slurries. After the FHD centrifuge separation, the solids are removed and the liquid is returned for recirculation. Like in the drilling mud system, the recovered slurry is drilling fluids, it can be reused in drilling mud system, in waste water treatment system, the recovered slurry is water, which can be reused in the waste water treatment plant. And in some cases, like in the barite recovery treatment, the solids are returned to the active system and the liquid is discarded, or goes to further treatment processing.

GNLW363C-FHD decanter centrifuge is fully hydraulic drive. Th Full hydraulic driven system is imported from leading brand from Switzerland. The bowl speed and conveyer speed of GN FHD decanter centrifuge is adjustable within the permitted range. It can achieve independent, step-less and large-range speed regulation for the bowl and conveying. The bowl speed and conveyer speed during working is showing on the screen.

The advantage of the full hydraulic drive centrifuge is for use in high temperature ambient for heavy mud with flexible bowl and differential speed. The compact one skid design makes it easier for rig up.

GN FHD decanter centrifuge is composed of bowl assembly, collection box, hydraulic drive system, electrical control panel, drive motor, vibration switch (optional), case, base assembly, and skid.

During decanter centrifuge operation, drilling mud or slurry is pumped through the feed tube into the center of the rotating conveyor, where it splashes against the feed accelerator. Screw pump is widely used as feeding pump for decanter centrifuge, besides screw pump, centrifugal pump and submers. The high velocity slurry is then dispersed out four feed nozzles mounted in the periphery of the conveyor cylinder. Rotating at a higher speed than the conveyor, the bowl creates an additional shearing effect, which further increases the slurry’s acceleration. The depth of the slurry in the bowl (pond depth) is determined by the setting of weirs on the liquid bowl head (large end of the bowl).

GN Solids is a major manufacturer for drilling mud solids control equipment, drilling waste management equipment, and replacement shaker screens for various brand shale shakers. As more than half of GN products are exported to international market, GN Solids Control has more understanding on international market and for different markets.

For examples, GN Solids Control can offer VFD decanter centrifuge with explosion proof A/C cooling system for high temperature ambient areas and regions, GN Solids Control can offer waste management system with heating function for low temperatures areas in Russia and Siberia. GN Solids Control is the 1st API certified solids control company in China, also certified by: Europe DNV CE, HSE, ISO9001, ISO14001 ISO 28001, Russia CU-TR certificate. DGMS Explosion Proof standard is specially requested for India market.

Last week, some sets of dual tandem shale shaker for India clients. The dual tandem shale shakers will be used at oil and gas drilling field of a major oil company in India.

Shale shaker is a basic separation equipment for all kinds of drilling activities, like oil and gas drilling solids control mud system, Horizontal directional drilling mud recycling system, water well drilling mud recycling system, TBM, piling, tunneling and micro tunneling desanding plants. Per different applications, clients can choose double deck shale shaker, singe deck shale shaker, 2-panel compact design shale shaker, 3-panel or 4-panel big capacity shale shaker. And for different applications, clients can choose dual tandem shale shaker, or triple tandem shale shaker.

Besides various models of shale shakers, GN Solids Control is capacity to make full line drilling mud processing equipment, like mud cleaner, desander, desilter, vacuum degasser, centrifugal degasser, mud gas separator, mud agitator, pumps, decanter centrifuges, and drilling waste management equipment, like vertical cuttings dryer, high G dryer, high speed decanter centrifuge, screw conveyor, dewatering unit, etc… Other GN Solids is capacity and experience on zone-discharge closed loop mud recycling system for oil and gas drilling field.

Decanter centrifuge is used to treat oil slurry, waste water and drilling mud of drilling field. It utilizes centrifugal force to separate fine solids from slurry and water mixture. It is precision separation equipment for solids control mud system at oil and gas drilling rigs. It is used after solids control equipment. After the drilling mud treated by shale shaker, desander, desilter, or mud cleaner, the recovered mud will be pumped to decanter centrifuge for precision separation. The decanter centrifuge can be used to recover barite for reuse, or to remove the ultrafine solids from drilling fluids to reduce the mud weight, to make the drilling qualified for drilling activity.

When the slurry or drilling mud is fed to FHD decanter centrifuge internal bowl, the slurry flows in the channels between the conveyor’s flights, the heavy particles settle at an accelerated rate due to the centrifugal force generated by the rotating bowl. Sand particles settle almost instantly; then the finer, lighter particles settle. Particles that cannot be settled under the present centrifuge settings will be discharged with the liquid through the adjustable weirs on the liquid bowl head. Liquid exiting the liquid bowl head is directed through the liquid discharge outlet.

The settled solids form a cake on the inside of the bowl and are transported by the conveyor toward the narrow end of the bowl, or beach. As the solids travel across the beach, their free liquid film is lost due to centrifugal squeezing and drainage. When they are discharged at high velocity through the solids discharge ports on the bowl, they contain only the adsorbed moisture.

Since the discharge cake is very heavy and sticky due to the lack of free liquid, the centrifuge should be installed over the receptacle that is to receive the discharged solids. If this is not possible a slide or chute is needed to convey the solids. A steep angle is required to ensure self-cleaning, or a wash system must be provided to prevent material buildup.

Recently, a mud cleaning shale shaker, mud cleaner, and decanter centrifuge started to work at an Environmental Protection Company in U.S.A. The Environmental Protection Company in U.S.A. is to collect waste water and waste slurry from different activities, like from drilling, from construction job sites, etc… The company will treat the waste slurry, and cover the water and oil for reuse or resell. The recovered solids, cuttings and particles can be sold again to construction company for building construction, or to build roads.

Below separation equipment in included in the mud cleaning job site for the USA Environmental Protection Company.
The 1st mud cleaning equipment is a Shale Shaker. It is a 4-panel shale shaker utilizing composite material pretension shaker screen. The shale shaker model is GNZS594-HB. It is the most hot sale shale shaker model from GN Solids Control. The shale shaker is widely used in oil and gas drilling, non-oil drilling, and waste slurry separation.

The 2nd stage separation equipment is a 3-in-1 mud cleaner. The mud cleaner model is GNZJ594-2S12N. The 3-in-1 mud cleaner separator is combined of a shale shaker, above the shale shaker, there is a package of desander cone, and a package of desilter cone. The desander and desilter packing are used on top of the under flow shale shaker. The recovered slurry from desander and desilter falls down to the under flow shale shaker, and recovered by the shaker screens which with fine wire mesh. The desander separation is 10 inch which is with cut point 47 microns. The slurry recovered from desander separator will be pumped to desilter separation. The cut point of desilter separator is 27 microns, which is used to further purify the recovered slurry. After desilter separator, the weight of the slurry can be reduced, the solids content is smaller. And the solids size in the slurry is qualified for high speed decanter centrifuge separation.

A high speed big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW553-VFD is used after mud cleaner separator to remove the ultrafine solids up to 2 microns.

Dual motion shale shaker is a kind of solids control drilling mud processing equipment. Shale shaker is the 1st stage solids control equipment to pre-treat drilling mud from drilling rigs. GNZS594F-SHBF is a Single Deck Dual Motion Shale Shaker. The shale shaker can be equipment with top weir feeder, or with back weir feeder.

GNZS594F-SHBF is a Dual Motion Shale Shaker. The shale shaker can work as Linear motion or Gradual elliptical motion. The working principle of dual motion is as below.

1) There are two vibrator motors mounted on the shale shaker, one of the vibrator motor can be adjusted manually. If the eccentricity is set to the eccentricity ratio we need, the forward and reverse excitation force of this vibrator will not change; the other’s eccentricity cannot be adjusted manually. The eccentricity ratio of forward and reverse is informed to the supplier in advance. The excitation force of this vibrator during forward rotation is exactly the same with the first one while it is only half of the first one when reverse rotating.

Generally speaking, the linear track motion is the opposite rotation of two vibrator motors; the gradual track motion is the same direction rotation of two vibrator motors.

When switching the two motion tracks at drilling site, it is necessary to wait until the shale shaker is completely stationary before switching through the button of the electric control panel. Before delivery from manufacture’s factory, the electric control cabinets will be equipped with function of shifting between dual motion shale shaker control and linear motion shale shaker control. The shale shkaker that has been delivered can realize track switching by adjusting the eccentric position and rotation direction of a vibrator.

Besides dual motion shale shaker, GN Solids Control can make linear motion shale shaker, mud cleaner, desander, desilter, decanter centrifuge and other solids control equipment.

GN Solids Control design and make vacuum pump for solids and sludge suction and transfer. Sludge vacuum pump is a high efficiency and powerful suction pump for high solids content and big size solids material suction and transfer.

GN solids and sludge vacuum transfer pump can suck and discharge oil sludge material with solids content up to 80%. And the max. solids size the vacuum pump is capable to transfer can up to 75mm.

GN solids and sludge vacuum transfer pump is an ideal equipment used at offshore drilling rig platform. As at offshore drilling rig platform, the layout is very compact, space is very limited. Screw conveyor is popular used at on shore drilling rigs to collect and transfer drilling cuttings from solids control shale shaker, desander, desilter, mud cleaner, and decanter centrifuge. But screw conveyor takes a bigger footprint. The space is very limited at offshore platform. Screw conveyor is not suitable offshore drilling mud system.

Vacuum pump is suitable for this situation. A cuttings transfer station is used before vacuum pump after solids control equipment to collect drill cuttings. And then through hoses, vacuum pump can suck drilling cuttings from the cutting transfer station, and discharge to outside cutting storage tanks or places which can be max. 1000m away from the solids control equipment.

GN vacuum pump can also be used to suck and transfer rocks, sands, powder material directly. We can see, if the material is flowable, GN vacuum pump can be used.

As GN solids and sludge vacuum transfer pump is 100% driven by air. There is no electrical components. But the vacuum pump can suck material max. up to 50, and discharge material up to 1000m. In this case, in order to support the powerful suction and discharging capability, a big air supply is necessary to support stable running of the pump.

GN Solids Control Screw Conveyor is popular in the oil and gas industry for transfering the drilling cuttings, and feed the drill cuttings to processing equipment, like to feed to the vertical cuttings dryer, high G force cuttings dryer, and cuttings collection box. GN designed different sizes of auger diameter, 12 inch, 14 inch, 16 inch. They are the most popular 3 sizes, each size has 4 different length for option according to the drilling site of the customer. GN Solids Control can also make small dia. auger 10 inch and big dia. auger 18 inch.

Some days ago, a client contacted GN Solids Control to inquire about drill cuttings screw conveyor. Below is the communications between the client and GN Solids Control.

Client’s Question: Do you have 5.5 m transfer auger?

Comments and questions from GN Solids Control: Why you ask for 5.5m auger? Do you mean transfer length is 5.5m? GN Solids Control standard screw conveyor is combined with standard sections with 12ft in length. Job site operators can remove a mid. Section to shorten the transfer length, or add a mid. Section to extend the transfer length. For standard auger models, the available length is 12ft, 24ft, 36ft and 48ft. And the auger dia. varies from 10 inch to 18 inch.

Client’s reply and comments: I want 5.5 m auger. In this case, I can put the auger into 20ft container. By the way, I will need a 20ft containerized dewatering unit. Can I put the 5.5m auger into the 20ft dewatering unit container?

Comments and questions from GN Solids Control: What materials you want to transfer with the auger?

Client’s reply and comments: I want to transfer oil sludge with the auger.

Besides used for oil and gas industry, GN Solids Control screw conveyor is also popular in other applications, below are some of the applications of GN Screw conveyor:
1) Environmental Waste management industry for material transfer
2) Mining and Coal industry transfer
3) Construction field waste managerial and bulk material handling and transfer
4) Grain industry.
5) Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering Industry.
6) Food & Beverage Industry
7) Power and metallurgy Plant