Solids Control systems and equipment are quite important for a successful drilling project. An efficient solids control system can helps to remove solids particles out of the drilling mud. In this way, the expensive drilling mud could be reused in future drilling. What is included in a complete solids control system?

A complete solids control system, especially for a large power horse drilling rig, should have following equipment divided per tanks:

1. The trip tank. Per certain rig size, there should be a certain amount of drilling mud to be prepared, but during drilling, there is always some mud loss because of drilling or because of mud separation. So there should be a trip tank holding well prepared mud for compensate the mud loss. For the trip tank, there is always a mud agitator and a centrifugal pump as trip pump.

2. Settle tank or also called the shaker tank. Shale shakers are the first step separation of the solids control system, they are used to remove the most solids from the drilling mud with suitable vibrating G force and screen mesh. On a long shaker tank, after the shale shakers, there should be a degasser to remove the bubbles generated during drilling to ensure the safety and to protect the pumps in following steps. If there is a mud cleaner in this system, it should be on this tank, too. A mud cleaner is a combination of desanding cones and desilter cones fed by centrifugal pumps.

3. Active tank. It is a tank for decanter centrifuge. The decanter centrifuge is located after the mud cleaner, to do the barite recovery or fine particle separation. It is always fed by a submersible slurry pump or a screw pump

4. Suction tank for mixing and reserve tank for storage.

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