Essential Operational Details of Solids Control Equipment

Dec 12, 2011

READ: It is quite essential to normally operate any solids control system or equipment in oil & gas drilling. Therefore, KOSUN has summed up a list of techniques concerning the equipment operational details based upon actual operations, which will make your drillings more productive with less energy consumption.

It is quite essential to normally operate any solids control system or equipment in oil & gas drilling. Therefore, KOSUN has summed up a list of techniques concerning the equipment operational details based upon actual operations, which will make your drillings more productive with less energy consumption.

1. Weak capacity of solids control equipment:

It should be taken into consideration how much the fluids can be injected into mud tanks according to equipment’s actual capacity and how much the flow rate is in mud agitator in order to guarantee the quality of processing the fluids.

2. Return of the rough solids removed by screen in mud cleaner:

If the liquid flow all returns to the system, that means nothing has been taken away. Thus, the solid particles left on the screen of mud cleaner ought to be removed.

3. Installation of vaccum degasser at the downstream of hydrocyclones:

If the degasser is placed behind the equipment supplied by centrifugal pump, the pump can be blocked by entraining gases. Entrained fluids will reduce its flow rate and working efficiency of hydraulic cyclones. If the gases are poisonous, it is better to remove them in the first mud tank rather than the third or the fourth one.

4. Shared sunction tank for desilter and desander:

If the desilter and desander share a sunction tank, then half drilling fluids is treated by desilter and another half by desander. That means, 50% of the fluids pumped into the well is not treated by desander and another 50% not by desilter, thus betraying the basic rule of successive treatment and disabling the desamder to effectively reduce the solids load in desilter.

5. Two centrifugal pumps in parallel to supply the same equipment:

It is commonplace in the configuration of solids control system because, with 30m pressure head and 25L/s funnel nozzle, two centrifual pumps installed in parallel equal to a pump with 30m pressure head and 25L/s funnel nozzle.

If the single pump does not have required pressure head of the equipment, then it is not proper to place another one in parallel, but rather to examine if it is in good condition. If it is but the pressure head is still not up to the scratch, then replace the propeller with a larger one.

KOSUN Solids Control System