Africa is becoming a black gold during the years of crude oil exploration. Many oil companies from all over the world are heading for Africa to explore the crude oil and their drilling companies go along with them, too. They all follow the international standards for the drilling technology and environment protection methods. In Africa, along with each drilling rig, there shall be a complete set of waste management system for drilling cuttings. GN Solids Control’s waste management systems are quite popular there.
A complete drilling cuttings waste management system shall include following equipment:

1. Drilling cuttings vertical cuttings dryer. It is like a vertical decanter centrifuge, with the function like a washing machine. By high speed vibration the material are splashed to the screen basket, and liquid is splashed out of holes, while solids are blocked to fall down. After the treatment of a GNCD930 Vertical cuttings dryer, the oil on cutting could be reduced to below 0.5%

2. A decanter centrifuge, after the vertical cuttings dryer, there are still fine particles in liquid phase, and the decanter centrifuge is used to further removal of the fine particles between 2 to 5 microns. Then, the clean mud can be returned to the drilling system.

3. Feeding equipment for the vertical cuttings dryers and decanter centrifuges. On a complete system, the vertical cuttings dryers are always fed by screw conveyor combinations. And a decanter centrifuge is fed by a screw pump. The feeding equipment are preferred to be variable in speeds for matching different work conditions.

In a recent project, a GN old client who is using GN cutting dryers and decanter centrifuges already purchased following equipment for feeding: 10 sets Variable Speed Screw Conveyors, and 8 sets of Variable Speed Screw Pumps.