Waste solution for Oil & Gas Drilling Installations

Waste solution for Oil and Gas Drilling Installations

During drilling, a fluid known as drilling mud is used to lubricate the drill bit and carry the drill cuttings to the surface, where they are separated from the mud and cleaned. The mud is reused where possible. Discharging of the drill cuttings into the surrounding environment is no longer allowed and are now taken ashore for further treatment and disposal.

The removal of cuttings (drilling) from oil rigs has traditional involved the use of ‘cuttings boxes’ which are relatively small and require extensive crane operations which are costly and have significant health and safety issues.

The challenge

Halliburton engineer's approached us with an idea that included the use of a recently developed pump called the SV400 SupaVac and asked if we could develop a solution to address this time consuming and dangerous operation. Over a relatively short period of time and with a genuinely collaborative approach, we developed the Cuttings Transport Tank, CTT. Our extensive experience in manufacturing tanks and our ability to share ideas via our 3D solid model drafting software with engineers based in Norway, and the USA was a great asset to quickly develop a solution.

The results

The final solution allows cutting to be blown into the custom designed and manufactured tank while still securely fitted to the support vessel. The cutting are then transferred to shore and quickly loaded onto a tipper trucks. To speed up the final discharge the tanks were designed with a hydraulically opening end. This allows the contents to be quickly emptied into the final processing operation.