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Drilling mud & spent drilling fluids

The professional treatment of drilling fluids is essential to guarantee the perfect drilling process while simultaneously adhering to the mandatory environmental protection requirements. GEA supports this process by using high-performance centrifuges in which a robust, flexible and user-friendly design is of the utmost importance.

No drilling without liquid

The borehole cutting has to be brought to the surface, while the drilling head has to be protected. Special drilling fluids are continuously pumped into the bore hole during this process. Although these form a closed system, they are continuously contaminated with sludge, salt water and oil residues.

Barite recovery possible

Continuous treatment of the drilling fluids with GEA centrifuges ensures that the process sequences are smooth. Our centrifuges reliably separate unwanted solid materials, thus ensuring that no contaminated fluids pollute the ground and sea water, and that drilling fluids can be reused on a permanent basis. These centrifuges can also recover the relatively expensive heavy mineral, barite, which is added to increase the weight and density of the drilling fluids. Our centrifuges are so flexible that they can be used to both, to purify the drilling mud and to recover the barite.

Robust and reliable

The design must be robust, as the drilling fluids and barite place a lot of pressure on the mechanism and the material. This is why the drives in our centrifuges are designed for maximum torques and high differential speeds from the outset, while maintaining a high throughput rate. High performance at low speeds reduces wear to a minimum. All of the parts that come into contact with the product are made of extremely erosion and corrosion-resistant materials and thanks to the heavy-duty wear protection, our machines are just as robust and reliable under extreme conditions, for example, thanks to the computer-controlled and precise build-up welding of the hard metal plating right through to tiles for the scroll.

Fluctuating feed conditions are a daily occurrence that is why our decanters have a very wide differential speed range which can be continuously adjusted. Our innovative drive concept, GEA summationdrive, ensures that only the power that is actually required is supplied, thus ensuring that the drive is particularly energy efficient. Combined with an extremely simple operating system, our centrifuges are extremely robust, flexible, energy-efficient and user-friendly. 

Oil rig view

Drainage Systems for Drill Ships and Platforms

GEA has developed several methods for processing drilling mud and water on the drilling decks of drilling platforms and drilling vessels; these range from a simple combination of decanter and separator, the upstream installation of a skimmer tank right through to recovery of the valuable heavy mineral barite. All three methods have already demonstrated their worth in the rough working environment of drilling platforms.
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