Diluent treated drilling waste material recovery process and system
AssigneeRecover Energy Services Inc.
InventorsStan Ross, Wendell Palmer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process and apparatus for removing hydrocarbons from hydrocarbon containing drilling waste. The process includes introducing hydrocarbon contaminated drill cuttings into one or more centripetal cuttings separators to create two distinct phases, thereafter discarding the bulk solids containing less hydrocarbons and treating the concentrated liquids phase in a solvent wash apparatus, resulting in improved efficiency of the facility throughput, while not substantially impacting the capital cost or operating cost of a solvent wash process facility. Apparatus for performing the process is also described.
Claims36
A process for treating unstabilized drill cuttings comprising,
- separating a first phase of unstabilized drill cuttings into
- a second phase of drill cuttings containing less liquid than the first phase and a concentrated third liquid phase,
- wherein the second phase comprises self-stabilized drill cuttings, and is disposable without addition of stabilization material, and
- the concentrated third liquid phase has a rheology and comprises a concentrated mixture of oil based drilling mud containing solids, wherein the solids comprise low micron solids with a size less than fifty microns that include high gravity solids with a specific gravity above 3.0 and low gravity solids with a specific gravity below 3.0 , and wherein the concentrated third liquid phase contains approximately equal volumes of the oil based drilling mud and the solids and,
- altering the rheology of the concentrated third liquid phase by flowing the concentrated third liquid phase concentrated mixture of oil based drilling mud and solids through a gas tight solvent wash to remove the oil based drilling mud from the concentrated third liquids-phase,
- resulting in increased overall throughput of unstabilized drill cuttings through the process without an increase in overall power consumption or capital investment.
Apparatus for treating unstabilized drill cuttings comprising,
- a separator for separating a first phase of unstabilized drill cuttings into
- a second phase of drill cuttings containing less liquid than the first phase and a concentrated third liquid phase,
- wherein the second phase comprises self-stabilized drill cuttings and is disposable without addition of stabilization material, and
- the concentrated third liquid phase has a rheology and comprises a concentrated mixture of oil based drilling mud containing solids, wherein the solids comprise low micron solids with a size less than fifty microns that include high gravity solids with a specific gravity above 3.0 and low gravity solids with a specific gravity below 3.0, and wherein the concentrated third liquid phase contains approximately equal volumes of the oil based drilling mud and the solids and,
- a gas tight solvent wash tank in fluid flow communication with the separator for altering the rheology of the concentrated third liquid phase by flowing the concentrated third liquid phase concentrated mixture of oil based drilling mud and solids through the gas tight solvent wash tank to remove the oil based drilling mud from the concentrated third liquids phase,
- resulting in increased overall throughput of unstabilized drill cuttings through the apparatus without an increase in overall power consumption or capital investment.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.