摘要 |
In a drilling system where production fluids are produced during the drilling operation, a brine solution is used to prevent development of a filter cake on the formation and thereby in the absence of such filter cake, allow production to occur. A separation system at the surface separates out the gas component of the produced fluids, the fluidized particulate drill cuttings, and produced oil, to return a reusable drilling fluid to the system, which drilling fluid is substantially depleted of hydrocarbons so as to make the fluid usable. The separation system uses a hydrocyclone for processing an oily water phase to thereby minimize the complexity and cost of the oil/water separation portion of the drilling fluids system.
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