This month's "The World According to Wayne" discusses the advantages of a self-contained mud system.
On a recent job, we rigged up one of our new self-contained mud systems. We rigged up in a central location just off the edge of the close-pattern drilling area, and ran the hoses to the rig. After initially mixing mud to the desired viscosity, we started drilling. After a couple adjustments, the system was on autopilot. The holes stayed stable because the solids were all out on the ground, and the viscosity was stable because the system was removing the sand mechanically rather than just by settling. The volume in the system went down as we drilled, but when we ran the pile in the hole, it displaced the mud right back to the system. Make-up water was reduced by about 60 percent, and bentonite addition was cut in half. As we moved farther from the system, we had to add some hoses to reach, but we didn't have to dig new ditches or pits every time. Daily production improved by about 40 percent. We ended up with a huge pile of sand that the owner used for site leveling. The mud left over soaked into the location by the time we had rigged down.