American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015 - 100

SpecialReport: Drilling Fluids Technology
sity drilling.
"In dual density drilling, offshore rigs
may need to drill with mud circulation
rates exceeding 1,250 gallons a minute,"
he says. "That capacity would require
scores of centrifuges. The Barkeeper's
250 gallon-a-minute capacity means only
five of them would suffice.
"We are not against centrifuges," Hiltl
emphasizes. "In fact, we make them. The
Barkeeper is great for barite recovery,
but it cannot replace the second centrifuge
that is used to remove low-gravity solids.
However, it will allow companies to recover barite at a lower cost and move the
centrifuges previously used for that role
into low-gravity separation, doubling the
size of their centrifuge fleets."

High-G Shaker
How effective would a shaker be at
drying cuttings if it could deliver 50gravity force rather than the industrystandard five-eight? The answer to that
question once may have been a mystery,
but Hiltl says FSI is working with a mining- and manufacturing-focused shaker
company to adapt a technology capable
of 50 Gs to the oil field.
"We named the product MultiG because
it uses swinging masses called exciters to
multiply the shaker's energy to create
multiple G forces and frequencies on the
shaker screens," Hiltl says. "In testing
against identical shakers without the exciters, going to these high Gs has enabled
us to cut the oil on cuttings in half. If a
machine can achieve 20 percent oil on
cuttings, we can get to 10 percent.
"The tests also suggest the machines
with the exciters can process 30-50 percent
more mud than a regular machine," he
adds.
The shakers work so well partly because the combination of multiple G
forces and frequencies keeps the screens

Fluid Systems Inc. is adapting a technology pioneered in the mining and industrial sectors to create oil and gas shakers that deliver as much as 50 Gs of force at the screens.
Early tests suggest these shakers will be able to process 30-50 percent more mud than
comparable units without the new technology, FSI reports.

from plugging or being blinded, Hiltl
says. He notes that they can be used as
flowline shakers, as well as cutting dryers.
"With their efficiency and processing capacity, the MultiG shakers will provide
capital and operating cost savings," he
concludes.
Shaker Screen Configuration
To increase the effectiveness and reliability of shale shakers, Elgin Separation
Solutions reports it has developed a proprietary, patent-pending screen layout
that addresses the largest source of screen
bypass: gasket wear. According to the
company, traditional shaker screen decks
allow drilling fluid to continuously pass
over each screen's rear flowline gasket,
causing it to weaken or loosen. As time
progresses, larger volumes of coarse

Elgin Separation Solutions' new
vertical cuttings dryer eschews
the belts traditionally used to
connect the motor and gearbox
in favor of a direct drive. In addition to simplifying maintenance, this eliminates a Class I,
Division 2 safety hazard, the
company says.

100 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

solids can bypass the shaker screens and
enter the active mud system.
"Bypass can accelerate the weight of
the drilling fluid and the point at which
the operator has to either dilute or remix
the fluid," says Michael Rai Anderson,
Elgin Separation Solutions' president. "It
is possible to prevent gasket-related bypass
by properly installing the screens and inspecting the gaskets during installation,
but that does not always happen. Since
gasket wear accounts for almost 90 percent
of the possible path for cuttings or contamination bypass, we wanted to offer a
more reliable solution."
The waterfall cascade screen layout
comes standard in the company's newest
Hyper-GTM shale shakers, Anderson notes.

Beltless Cuttings Dryer
Anderson expresses even greater excitement about a new vertical cuttings
dryer (VCD) that eliminates the belt and
sheaves that traditionally are used to
transmit power from the motor to the
gearbox by replacing them with a direct
drive system. "We had three goals in developing the dryer," he says. "First, we
wanted to increase reliability. Lack of
attention and maintenance to belts is one
of the major causes of dryer failure.
"Second, we wanted to make the dryer
easy to service," he continues. "When a
technician has to change a belt or inspect
the sheaves, he has to get into the unit,

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015

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