Shaker Screens is a critical component in solids control equipment used in the drilling industry. Drilling operations use a borehole technology to penetrate deep beneath the surface to reach the fossil fuel, in this pursuit, the mud-loggers first need to do a sampling to ascertain the depth and quality of the rock they are penetrating.
In oil field digging, let’s suppose in an off-shore site, this drilling will be done with the help of a drilling rig. As the drilling bit will cut through the rock underneath the ocean floor, it will need some lubricant to keep it going, a drilling fluid is used for that purpose.
A drilling fluid is a rich mixture of different chemicals, either oil-based or water-based, this is commonly known as “drilling mud”. This drilling mud is very expensive to create, and it doesn’t only keep the equipment lubricated but also helps in keeping it cool and clean for further operations.
The drilling bit will carry with itself drilling cuttings, essentially the rock shavings, mixed with drilling mud. The mud-loggers will extract these shavings from the drilling bit for further analysis.
As explained earlier in the article, the drilling fluid is quite expensive so it is imperative for the operators to restore the drilling fluid from the drilling waste. For this purpose, various solid control types of equipment are used, among them a shale shaker is the foremost.
A shale shaker with the help of shaker screens helps separate the drilling cuttings from drilling fluid, and the separated drilling fluid is channeled to a separate container for further processing and treatment. The dried solid, i.e. drilling cuttings are conveyed to a separate container for further treatment and disposal.
One very important factor in the solid control system is its contribution to environmental balance. If a solid control system is not efficient enough, it is likely that the drill cuttings will still carry some amount of drilling fluid that contains chemicals that could be really harmful to the environment and cause contamination of soil or groundwater. The drilling industry follows strict rules on drilling waste management for the sake of environmental impact.
In conclusion, a shale shaker’s main function is to filter the drilling waste with the help of effective shaker screens and as a result help in the economy of overall drilling operations and environmental prevention.