Five stages in Solids Control System

Solids control is a technique used in drilling rig to separate the solids in the drilling fluids that are crushed by the drill bits and carried out of the well surface. Normally drilling rig solids control system consist of five stages, including mud tank, shale shaker, vacuum degasser, desander, desilter, decanter centrifuge.

Mud tanks play an important role in solids control system. It is the base of solids control equipment in solids control system, and also the carrier of drilling fluids. mud tank is an open-top container, typically made of square steel tube and steel plate, to store drilling fluid on a drilling rig. They are also called mud pits, because they used to be nothing more than pits dug out of the earth.

The shale shaker is the first stage of solids control equipment in solids control system, which removes cuttings with diameter above 75μm from the drilling fluids brought up from the wells. Afterwards, the treated fluids flow into the tank waiting to be processed again in the next stage of the system.

Desander is the second stage of solids control equipment in solids control system. It is mainly used to take away the solids with diameter ranging from 45 to 74 μm from the formerly treated fluids and then send them to the next stage for more purification.

Desilter is the third stage of solids control equipment in solids control system. In this case, the solids with diameter ranging from 15 to 44 μm are to be separated from the rest,which will go through further processing.

Decanter centrifuge is the solids control equipment which used to separate the solids from volumes of liquid that contain solid particles. This may be a process stream or a waste product from a process.

Drilling fluids flow into the shale shaker directly after it returns to the surface of the well, and the solids that are removed by the screen would be dischanged out of the tank, and the drilling fluids with smaller solids would flow through the screen into mud tank for further purification. A centrifugal pump would sucks the shaker-treated fluids up to the desilter or mud cleaner for further purification. And vertical slurry pump is used to pump the drilling fluids up to the centrifuge,and mud pump would pump the drilling fluids from mud tank into the borehole after it is treated by centrifuge. And the circulation system would continue.

The number of the mud tanks that are needed on the drilling rig depends on the depth of the well, and also the mud demands of drilling. Nomally the shale shaker and vecuum degasser and desander are mounted together on the same mud tank as the first tank at the oilfield, while desilter and centrifuge on the second tank. and also the drilling rig would has other different tank as reserve tank,emergency tank, etc.

Kosun Is thet professional manufacturer of Solids Control System in China, KOSUN is a vital part of the world hydrocarbon exploration and production industry, as well as one of top three solids control equipment suppliers in China, which offers its products for CNPC, CNOOC ,HH, Gazprom, RG, etc . If you want to know more information about solid control system and oil drilling solids control equipment,you can contact us online or email us to sales@adkosun.com .