Page 26 - Shale Shakers Drilling Fluid Systems
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 9
1970-1971 Centrifuge, Inc.—Centrifuge, Inc. in-
troduced the "Derrick Mfg. Co." machines to the
oil field. These were some of the first "Derrick"
industrial units that were modified for oil field
operation and possessed both an extremely high
angle and high rpm. This is where the term
"high speed" originated from for fine-screen
shakers. Although the centrifuge had been used
in the oil field for some time, during the early
1970s they became an integral part of the sol-
ids control system to remove colloidals from
drilling fluids.
1974-1975 Dahlory, Inc.—Dahlory began sloping
its screen downhill at extremely high angles, that
A circular motion Baroid double-deck shale shaker. were being used at this time. The units still used
elliptical motion but in a more efficient manner.
1960-1961 Thompson Tool Co.—Quite fearless 1974-1975 Swaco/Dresser—The Swaco divi-
in their early endeavors, Thompson Tool was sion of Dresser introduced their vibrating screens
not adverse to experimenting with new methods. using elliptical motion. The vibrator was posi-
They introduced an extremely efficient desander tioned so that they could run finer screens, and
and a packless centrifugal pump to feed these it competed very efficiently with Baroid's double-
units, which was quite innovative for the time. deck screen. One of the advantages of this ma-
chine was the "openness" of its design—one
1966-1967 Baroid Division National Lead could actually see the separation occurring. This
Company—Baroid introduced the double-deck also enabled broken screens to be seen and
shaker, as well as circular motion, to the oil field
shale shaker. In the beginning, it was extremely replaced much more quickly and easily.
difficult to maintain the integrity of the screens, 1974-1975 Hutchison-Hayes International,
but as these units became more popular and per- Inc.—Hutchison-Hayes, formerly Hutchinson
sonnel became more familiar with them, they
found they could run much finer screens—up to Manufacturing, introduced a cascade-type unit
where elliptical motion was used on both the
80 mesh. These units could also remove consid- top and bottom shakers; however, the bottom
erably more solids than the current shakers that shakers had the vibrator moved out very close
were only using 30-square mesh screens.
to the discharge end of the shaker to attempt
1966-1967 Medearis Oil Well Supply Corp.— to increase conveyance. The process included
Medearis introduced a cuttings washing system scalping off the shale (the large cuttings or
that transported the cuttings from the shaker di-
rectly into a washing system that adequately re-
moved the drilling mud from the cuttings. This
enabled the cuttings to be discharged overboard
and the fluid returned back to the mud system
or held as makeup. This was an important early
device for offshore drilling, particularly on the
west coast.
1968-1969 S. N. Marep-Although most of the
oil field equipment was built in the United States,
the S. N. Marep shaker was built in France and
several other shakers were manufactured in
Romania and Russia.
1968-1969 Thompson Tool Co.—This unit has an
adjustable orifice for controlling the underflow.
The advertisement depicts a good cross-section Centrifuge Inc. unbalanced elliptical motion shale
showing the desander hydocyclone in operation. shaker.
