Evaluate The Efficiency Of Solids Control Equipment

The volume and type of solids in a drilling mud system can adversely affect mud properties, reduce penetration rates, cause damage to drilling equipment, and increase total drilling costs. Efficiency controlling the solids content of the mud system is an important phase of an efficient and cost-effective drilling program. The three basic methods of removing solids are dilution and/or displacement of whole mud, settling and mechanical solids-control equipment.

Fig 1. Size capacity and operating of solids control equipment

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FIELD APPLICATION – A CLOSED-LOOP IMPLEMENTATION

A field application of the economic and performance analysis model for a closed-loop system implementation. A district had realized substantial benefits through more effective solids control in earlier years and was interested in 1986 in analyzing the economics of further improvements in solids control. The economic and performance analysis programs were run to predict the costs, potential savings, and recommend a suitable solids control system. It was a nine-well (2-vertical and 7-directional, 4300 ft average depth) infill drilling program within the city limits, which imposed certain constraints such as minimal or no reserve pits with all the extra mud and wastes hauled for off-location disposal.

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Comparison of Plate Separator, Centrifuge and Hydrocyclone

An important problem in the oil industry is the treatment of produced water, especially in the case of offshore oil production where space and floor area, needed for the separation equipment, are extremely costly. Increased production of water occurs when an oil field matures, and the availability of efficient and cost-effective techniques partly determines the period during which economic production is possible. For the final de-oiling process several techniques are available, of which plate separation, centrifugation and the use of hydrocyclones are important ones. Common characteristics of these three techniques are that only insoluble oil components can be removed, and that the prevailing separation process is movement of the oil droplets with respect to the continuous phase, water, as a result of an external force, viz. the gravity force or the centrifugal force.

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