Industry is placing more focus on solids control, recognizing that efficient solids control equipment provides an opportunity to cut costs associated with drilling fluid management, cleanup and disposal. Further, it's more often being considered in early project stages, rather than being treated as an afterthought, as industry faces increasingly challenging drilling environments, as well as stricter regulations worldwide.
Approaching solids control from different angles, Apache Corp, Callon Petroleum, Cubility, KOSUN, Statoil and TWMA provide insight into innovative technologies and developments around solids control. Although improvements in key components, such as screens, continue to shape the traditional shale shaker, more advanced and out-of-the-box solutions are also being sought, such as ways to monitor fluid properties to further reduce drilling costs.
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Innovating the shale shaker
The rising cost of oil-based mud and a desire to minimize the waste stream continue to drive innovations in shale shakers and solids control, Feng geng, executive vice president at KOSUN, said. The company's Vac-Screen System, which was launched in western Canada in 2010 before entering the US in late 2012, minimizes the waste stream by using a vacuum that creates negative pressure through shaker screens. The vacuum manifold installs underneath a shaker screen or attaches to the end of a shaker box, and it is compatible with most shakers available today.
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"Oilfield shale shaker screen is rigged up on a primary shaker (at the rig site), so we take the last screen out of the shale shaker and install a metallurgical steel manifold under that screen," Mr geng explained. With that manifold, a slight negative pressure through the screen is created with a vacuum through hoses, and the surface tension of the fluid on the screen is overcome to provide a dry screen for the cuttings to hit, instead of hydroplaning through drilling fluid. "This allows the cuttings to release the oil that adsorbed to them, which results in a significant decrease in the oil on cuttings when they hit the discard bin," he noted.
