The traditional Oil-based Mud Treatment Technology is recycling and incineration.,simple processing and low cost. But this measures is higher demands on stratigraphy and the incineration can cause serious pollution to the environment, Not conducive to the construction of environmental conservation-minded society. At present, to meet emissions requirements, The mainly measures is through physical or chemical method to separate oil from the oil-based mud.
Incineration is that putting the cuttings waste of oil-based mud into a pyrolysis incineration device to achieve decomposed at high temperature and deep oxidation. In the process of incineration, consumed the oil in the cuttings and reduced the oil content greatly. But This method can produce a lot of smoke during burns, and it is also expensive to process.
Heat treatment method is that puting oil-based mud into the distillation column and rotaring evaporator to achieve full heating, then cooling collection until most of liquid oil and water evaporative. and discharge directly after the drill cuttings meet emission standards of oil content. But this method of processing costs is very higher. It is estimated that disposal drilling cuttings of one well need the total cost about $330,000.
Centrifugal separation is that using the principle of centrifugal to separate oil from oil-based mud. That is the specialized centrifugal separation equipment. It is vertical cuttings dryer. After centrifugal treatment, Water-based mud and composite mud: Water content 8-10%, oil-based mud: water content≤6%, OOC≤3%. and this equipment is the environmental and low cost treatment method. so it is the most popular measure to disposal oil-based mud.