THE BIG STINK
Or, How to keep from being overrun by cuttings soaked with diesel fuel. |
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THE BIG STINK
Or, How to keep from being overrun by cuttings soaked with diesel fuel. |
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We all have seen it and worked with it. You can't take samples of the Prairie Evaporite or the Blackstone without...Invert Mud. The smelly, toxic headache for which we levy a surcharge for the privilege of making our shack smell like a transmission shop. In the likelihood that we share our accommodations with the drilling foreman, double headache. It doesn't have to be this way, really. |
Invert is unpleasant, to be sure. I used to arrive onsite acting like a salesman for Procter & Gamble, toting giant yellow jugs of Sunlight to pump into the sample washer. Eventually jugs were lurking everywhere. Briefly the 'lemon-fresh scent" pervaded the lab, providing relief, albeit temporary, from the pervasive odor of diesel fuel. I have seen some pretty bad lab environments, but this took the cake. I have since graduated to Varsol as the cleaner of choice. |
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As for the stink, the solution is deceptively simple. Containment. Isolation. Think Dubya and Saddam. And safe disposal. The government boards dealing with cuttings now only accept washed and vialed samples, so the bags can finally go to disposal onsite. But, before disposal, they are indoors, reeking.
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Dishpans. Lots of them, say three. Two buckets with tight-fitting lids, easily procured at the rig. Collect your bags in a dishpan at the sample door. Replace with a clean dishpan when going on a washing run. Punch holes in the bottom of a bucket and nest it inside another (optional method here) so that diesel draining out can be recovered and disposed of. As you wash, toss the bag into the bucket, and replace the lid firmly. These simple steps reduce the smell almost completely, and virtually prevent the insidious creeping seepage of diesel and goo onto your countertops. Not to mention the flammable heap of newspapers I've seen used by some!. The entire invert-soaked mess can be placed outside when tripping or watching HGTV. And you can sleep without smelling like a refinery.
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Varsol for cleaning Invert Samples
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Slow evolution of the sample washing system for invert mud. I have adopted Varsol paint thinner as the solvent. Covering the buckets at the end of a wash cycle keeps the odor completely in check, and drying time is ten times quicker....usually less than a minute for a couple of tablespoons of sample. |
