Shale shaker is first stage solids control equipment in drilling mud purification and recycling system. Shale shaker separator is also known as the major solids control equipment in drilling mud system. The performance of the shale shaker has big affection on performance of the entire solids control system.

A batch of shale shaker separators has been ready for shipment last week. The shale shakers are ordered for a Russian client for their oil rig mud system. The shale shakers will be used to replace the old shale shakers in the client’s old drilling mud solids control system.

The shale shaker model for the project is the most hot sale 4-panel shale shaker. The shale shaker is equipped with high quality composite frame pretension screens. The composite frame pretension shale shaker screens are designed and made by the shaker manufacturer – GN Solids Control. It gives clients more benefits. As shale shaker screen is the most cost wearing spare parts for shale shakers, and even the most cost much wearing spare parts for drilling mud solids control recycling system. As GN Solids Control are both the shale shaker original manufacturer and the shale shaker screen manufacturer, clients can get better price supporting for shale shaker screens from GN Solids Control.

The composite frame pretension shale shaker screens can enable the shale shaker have a better and more reliable separation performance and longer screen servicing time under high temperature drilling mud.

The composite frame pretension shale shaker screens are mounted by wedges. Unlike fixing screens by bolts, the wedge type is for easy operation. It helps the shale shaker operators to change replacement screens fast and easier.

Another advantages of GN shale shaker screen is that, the shaker deck angle changing system is Synchronous lifting adjustment. Synchronous lifting adjustment for shaker deck screw is GN patent design. The operators do not need to stop the shale shaker, but they can change shale shaker deck angle during the shaker is running. And when the operators change shaker deck angle from either side of the shale shaker deck, both side angle change be lift or fall on the exact same degree. It saves time. Time is money for activities.

Mud agitator is designed to agitating the drilling fluids in mud tanks. Mud agitator is composed of motor, gearbox reducer, shaft and impeller. It is a high efficiency unit for mud mixing in solids control mud system. GN Solids Control offers all sizes of drilling mud agitators for different sizes and functional mud tanks, like shale shaker tank (slope tank), suction tank, mixing tank, storage tank, pill tank, water tank, trip tank, marine tank, etc…Both horizontal and vertical type drilling mud agitator are available.

According to the design type of gearbox reduce, there are 2 major types of mud agitator:
1) Worm and gearbox reducer mud agitator. This type agitator is with compact design and smaller footprint. Its cost is lower but the efficiency is less.
2) Helical bevel gearbox reducer mud agitator. It is heavy duty type. This type agitator is with a bigger footprint for the same horse power motor but with much higher stir efficiency than worm gearbox type. Its cost is higher.

In order to choose the right model of mud agitator of the mud tanks, below information is requested before ordering agitators:
1) The dimension of the mud tank (L×W×H).
2) The weight of the drilling mud
3) Voltage of the the power supply for driven motors
4) Impeller type: canted blade type or flat blade type. Mostly it is canted blade impellers. The canted blade impeller is better stir performance compared with flat blade impeller.
5) Number of mud agitators requested for the sizing mud tank.
6) Required TOR. TOR means the turn over rate.

The TOR is the number of seconds required for the impeller to pump the full volume within the sizing area. Remember that a lower TOR indicates more agitation because the tank turns over in fewer seconds. TOR should be in the range of 35 to 90 seconds for all “sizing areas”. Although, for the suction tank, it should have a TOR closer to 90 (less agitation) to prevent aeration.

After weeks hard working together with Australia engineering team, GN Solids Control finished the design and fabrication of a set of special drilling mud treatment system to a well-known drilling company in Papua New Guinea. The most special point of the drilling mud solid control system is that the entire mud system will be chartered to Papua New Guinea by airplane, including tanks, all separation equipment, and mud gas separator package.

As the oil field is located at very remote areas, there are no normal roads leading to the oilfield. As a full package mud treatment system composed of full line drilling mud solid control equipment, and mud tanks, and all the items must be shipped by air plane, the workload and difficulty of work can be imagined.

The mud system is composed of 6 mud tanks for sufficient tank volume and to support bigger handling capacity.
In the mud recovery system, two drilling fluid shale shakers and one mud cleaner are equipped for the separation of coarse cuttings and sand. After three-stage separation, most of the harmful solids will be removed, so that the drilling mud can be reused. According to the different function and tank volume, totally 18 mud agitators were installed on 6 tanks. The function of the centrifugal pumps is to transfer the mud in the system from a mud chamber to a subsequent purification equipment, such as to desiander and desilter separators.

In order to ensure the aggravation of mud and the need of slurry blending, the system adopts the design of double jet mud mixer: two mixing pumps are connected in parallel. In condition that any mixed pump is overhauled, the other one can still work. The system is also equipped with a mud gas separator, which can separate and release the combustible gas invading the drilling mud to avoid blowout.

Papua New Guinea is one of the countries with the most stringent manufacturing and assembly standards for solid control systems in the world. In the process of designing and manufacturing the system, GN Solids Control faced with two main challenges: one is the electrical cables. During the work, all operating procedures need to be completed in accordance with Papua New Guinea standards. As GN Solids Control completed some projects in the area to accumulating a lot of experience, this work can be carried out smoothly. Another challenge is that each module needs to be controlled within a strict weight range to ensure the safety of helicopter hoisting operations, which requires all items design must calculate the weight very carefully to avoid overweight.

GN Solids Control has experience for both FHD and VFD decanter centrifuge for +55C degree in high ambient area, like middle east and Africa. But many clients do not know how to choose the VFD centrifuge or FHD centrifuge to suit for their projects.

Generally speaking, if clients accept longer delivery time and higher price, but wants reliability and easy operation, they will choose FHD. Otherwise they will choose VFD.

1) 14 inch and 18 inch Decanter Centrifuge:

FHD decanter centrifuge is more reliable for unstable power supply or poor power supply, since it’s one skid, it’s fewer footprints and it’s easy for transportation from rig to rig.

And FHD decanter centrifuge is easy for maintenance and operation, more mechanical staff. But FHD decanter centrifuge price is higher than VFD centrifuge, and the delivery time is longer.

VFD Centrifuge price is lower than FHD centrifuge. But VFD centrifuge needs to have A/C cooling system, for cooling VFD drives, and VFD centrifuge needs protection devices for poor power supply.

VFD centrifuge is PLC and HMI controlled, which needs more experienced people to set up the parameters.

2) 22 inch Decanter Centrifuge

22 inch Centrifuge can be FHD, but few company make the 22 inch bowl FHD centrifuge. All manufactures are providing VFD control for 22 inch big bowl centrifuge.

The reason is that, for 22 inch FHD centrifuge, even the operators use FHD control, they will need soft start or VFD starter for the big motors of the big bowl centrifuge.

So the hydraulic drive package will be on a separate skid. This means, both FHD and VFD of 22 inch decanter centrifuges are two skids.

And the price of FHD is much higher than VFD. And moreover, the 22 inch big bowl normally used for offshore projects which is not moving frequently.

So for the 22 inch decanter centrifuge, the available option is VFD drive not FHD.

Decanter centrifuge is the major separation equipment for oil sludge treatment. Chemical dosing dewatering unit is usually used together with decanter centrifuges for flocculent and to remove the ultra-fine solids.

But in some cases, the clients do not need dewatering unit for chemical dosing. Recently, GN Solids Control followed up a project that the client said tor the dewatering unit they don’t think we need it for their project as the out coming water from the separator will be stored in an open pit and exposed to the sun to be naturally evaporated. Also the containerized 3-tank automatic chemical dosing system is not needed for the project. The client wants to choose separation equipment between the 3 Phase Separation Disc centrifuge Separator, or 14 inch (360mm) Decanter Centrifuge. They want to know what are the main differences between the two machines?

GN Solids Control makes both 2-phase and 3-phase 14 inch (360mm) Decanter Centrifuge separation unit. After 2-phase decanter centrifuge separation, the outputs are soil and liquid mixture.
After 3-phase decanter centrifuge, the outputs will be oil, water and soil.
The maximum solids control in the liquid for feeding to Disc centrifuge is less than 2%.
The maximum solids control in the liquid for feeding to 2-phase decanter centrifuge is less than 20%.
The maximum solids control in the liquid for feeding to 3-phase decanter centrifuge is less than 10%.
The maximum solids size allowable for all above centrifuge models are 20mm.

The client want GN Solids Control to suggest them which centrifuge separation does GN think is more suitable for their project. Per their oil sludge situation, the 3-phase decanter centrifuge can suit for the project.
And what is the capacity of the generator the client need to use to run the 14inch (360mm) Decanter Centrifuge?
And also they want to know is it possible to have 14 inch (360mm) Decanter Centrifuge inside container and on skid mounted so that we can only see the inlet and the three outlets.

GN Solids Control make heavy duty telescopic skid. The skid can be lower down to less than 2.5m for shipment and lift up to 2.8m during working for liquid flow to other places by gravity.

Recently, a customer contacted GN Solids Control to ask for a quote for the air driven vacuum transfer pump system GNSP-40B.

To ensure clients make right decision and choose the right equipment type and model. GN Solids Control sales manager communicate more information in this regards.

Below are some questions GN Solids Control asked to the client:

What material you want to transfer? What is the transfer capacity and transfer distance you need to reach? The max. suction distance of GN solids vacuum pump can up to max. 50m, it is for horizontal transfer. The vertical lifting head is max. 7~8m.
GNSP-40B is a solids and sludge vacuum pump. It can apply for various applications in different industries, like to transfer drilling cuttings, solids and sludge. GN Solids Control has 3 vacuum pump models, GNSP-40B is the biggest model. GN Solids Control has middle size GNSP-20P, and a small size GNSP-10B. The middle size and small size are both portable design with tyres for easy movement. As there is no electrical parts and 100% driven by air, it requests big air consumption.

Take GNSP-40B for example, it request air supply 17m³/min with pressure 550~785Kpa. If driven by a separate air compressor, the min. power is 90kw. It can also use other air source only if the pressure and air consumption can achieve.
While you choose models, pls consider both the capacity and air supply. Enclosed is the brochure for your information.
You can visit our website to check the working performance:
https://www.gnsolidscontrol.com/video/solids-vacuum-pump-pick-up-material-with-height-of-3-meters-video.html

Besides solids and sludge vacuum pump, GN Solids Control does also make vacuum cleaner for oil mud clean-up or tank cleaning of rig site. It is a dual function vacuum unit for both vacuum cleaner and vacuum transfer pump. Operators only need to change the suction head to suit for different material and different applications.
Besides oil rig site, the GN Mini Vacuum Cleaner can also be used as industry cleaner.
https://www.gnsolidscontrol.com/video/gn-vacuum-cleaner-for-industrial-waste.html

Recently, GN Solids Control engineer just finished a jobsite troubleshooting for decanter centrifuge. The problem of the the jobsite is that, the client use a very big power sand pump is used to feed for 2 centrifuges; the pipelines are controlled by valves. The pump control is separated with centrifuge control. There is no connection between pump control and centrifuge control. It is not allowed and will damage the centrifuge.

GN Solids Control comments: There MUST be connection between centrifuge control and feeding pump control.
The centrifuge itself is with overload protection. In case of overload, e.g.: the feeding flow is suddenly increased, or jobsite people wrongly open the valve to feed more mud, or the mud weight is suddenly increased, etc…The mud is over the centrifuge handling capacity. The centrifuge will be stopped to avoid damage.

In normal condition there is connection between pump control and centrifuge control. The pump feeding can be stopped immediately after the centrifuge is stopped. The centrifuge bowl is stopped rotating gradually, the internal mud is push out during the time. After the centrifuge completely stopped, operators can check the situation or adjust centrifuge settings, and start the centrifuge and pump feeding again.

But if there is no connections between centrifuge control and pump control. In case the centrifuge is stopped as overload, the pump cannot be stopped and keep feeding to the centrifuge bowl. The centrifuge stopped rotating but mud continued be pumped into the bowl and cannot come out, it will cause serious block, or even cause serious damage to centrifuge components, like damage the gearbox or bearings.

Recommended solution:
There are control components for 7.5kw feeding pump in GN centrifuge panel.

Change feeding pump to 5.5kw or 7.5kw. The pump can be controlled directly by GN centrifuge panel. There are interlock connection between centrifuge control and pump control.

Alternative solution:
If the job site is not capable to change for small feeding pump. Connect the existing pump panel control wires to GN centrifuge panel.
that the pump can be run.

Pneumatic Application Solids and sludge vacuum pump is a 100% air driven pump for various applications in different fields. Like for drilling cuttings transfer, for oil sludge transfer, for tank cleaning, for oil base mud cleaning, for sand / rocks transfer in construction companies, for chemicals transfer, etc… One time, a construction company ordered some vacuum pump packages: to allocate 8 pumps in a fabricated container, and used the vacuum pump to suck and transfer sands and rocks from a site to another, which is around 1 km away. Before using GN vacuum pump units, they have to use manpower and trucks for the transfer, it takes time and not continue.

Recently, some customers approaching GN Solids Control to source Pneumatic Application vacuum pump for Oil base mud and water base mud cuttings transfer. They did not use GN Pneumatic Application vacuum pumps before so they have some questions. Below are some normal questions clients are normally inquiring.

Clients’ questions: Does GN Solids Control have experience with any of the Solids and sludge vacuum pump working somewhere?
Reply from GN Solids Control: Till now we sold around 100 pumps in different sizes for different applications, like for drilling cuttings, oil sludge, tank cleaning, sand transfer, etc…

Most pumps we do not know what they are exactly for. Clients did not tell us clearly.
For drill cuttings transfer as far we know a pump in Singapore for offshore, and 2 pumps in Brazil for onshore.

Clients’ questions: Is it working well during all drilling sections – water base and oil base?
Reply from GN Solids Control: The vacuum pump can suit for OBM and WBM. If the material is floweable, the pump can be used.

Clients’ questions: Is it require separate compressor ?
Reply from GN Solids Control: The air supplier can come from separate compressor, or from other source. But it has to achieve the requested pressure and air consumption.

Clients’ questions: What is the backup solution in case of equipment shut down during operation?
Reply from GN Solids Control: Some clients use an extra pump for backup. Or use screw conveyors in case the vacuum pump is shut down.

Another 2 sets of 30 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW764 are under fabrication. After running testing in GN Solids Control factory, the 2 huge machines will be shipped to U.S. client to be used in their construction field slurry treatment system. The construction field slurry treatment system is also designed and made by GN.

The system is equipped with coarse solids separation shale shaker, normal solids control shale shaker, chemical dosing system, various mud tanks for different applications, pumps, mud agitators, electrical control system, and so on. The system were delivered earlier to the client. The 30 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW764 decanter centrifuge takes longer time for manufacturer than the slurry treatment system. They will be shipped separately by 2 full containers as the big size.

The 30 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW764 decanter centrifuge is equipped with a big bowl up to 30 inch. It is the biggest bowl GN Solids Control made. It is also one of the biggest bowl decanter centrifuge with high speed for industry application.

Few companies in the world are capable to make it. It requests a high standard on the processing production line.
The 30 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW764 decanter centrifuge is not popular in oil and gas drilling, which mostly utilize 14 inch for drilling mud solids control, 18 inch / 22 inch for drilling waste management. The 30 inch big bowl decanter centrifuge GNLW764 decanter centrifuge can be used for dewatering and thickening sewage slurry. The unique properties of the centrifuge bowl with specially designed gear box unit and smart control system will guarantee the performance of GN decanter centrifuge for municipal sewage sludge.

To achieve maximum dewatering and thickening of the municipal sewage slurry, the GN VFD or hydraulic drive centrifuge is available to set the bowl speed differential speed. GN Solids Control design purpose for the environmental solutions decanter centrifuges is to have reliable performance as well as best price / performance ratio for the investors.

GN Solids Control makes full line mud system equipment for oil and gas, and trenchless machines.
Shale shaker and mud cleaner are the major processing machine of mud treatment and recycling system. Besides, there are poor boy degasser, vacuum degasser, decanter centrifuge, jet mud mixer, mud agitator, mud mixing hopper, mud shearing pump, sand pump, etc…

GN Solids Control makes different models of shale shaker and mud cleaner to suit for different sizes of mud treatment and recycling system. All GN Solids Control shale shaker are equipped with high quality composite material pretension shaker screen for better performance and longer servicing time. GN Solids Control has his own screen plant for composite frame screens manufacturing. Besides offer screens for GN own shaker brand, GN Solids Control also makes high quality replacement screens for other brand shakers.

Below are some types of mud system shale shaker that GN Solids Control is capable to make:
1) Single deck shale shaker and double deck shale shaker
2) 2-panel shale shaker, 3-panel shale shaker and 4-panel shale shaker
3) Linear motion shale shaker and dual motion shale shaker
4) Tandem shale shaker and tripled-deck shale shaker

Below are some types of mud system mud cleaner that GN Solids Control is capable to make:
1) Desilter mud cleaner with under flow shale shaker or without under flow shale shaker
2) Desander mud cleaner with under flow shale shaker or without under flow shale shaker
3) Mud conditioners 3 in 1 mud cleaner: it is a combination of shale shaker, desander and desilter.
Besides solids control equipment for mud recycling system, and high quality replacement screens for different shaker models, GN Solids Control is also professional on drilling waste management equipment manufacturing. GN Solids Control make big bowl centrifuge, 3-phase centrifuge, cuttings dryer, screw conveyer, dewatering unit, drilling cutting solidification unit, etc… For more information of GN Solids Control equipment, welcome client contact GN.