Mud system will not work if there are no mud tanks. In the mud recycling system, the tanks are used to store the drilling mud to be a base where the solids control equipment to be installed. Normally, more than one mud tanks
will be used in the oil drilling mud system. For different purpose, the design of the mud tank is different, especially the inner structure of the mud tanks.
There are mainly 3 types of mud tanks recycling tank, intermediate tank and premixing tank. Then what are the different among these 3 types of mud tank?
The recycling tank is where to install the primary shakers and degasser unit, and also the de-sanding and de-silting unit. Each of equipment needs a compartment in the mud tank. As the recycled drilling mud is treated by the solids control equipment one by one. After treatment by each of the equipment, the drilling fluids will be cleaner than before. Thus the drilling fluids cannot be mixed. The wall between two compartments always has an overflow port for balance of the drilling mud in the tank.

Slurry Plant for CBM

For the tank to install the de-sander and de-silter unit, inner structure of the mud tank would be much complex as there are pipes for centrifugal pump to such the drilling fluids from inside of the tank and transfer to the cyclone for further treatment. Operator has to know which pipe is for de-sander and which pipe is the desilter.
On the mud tanks for installing the solids control equipment on, there always have the walkways and handrails. The walkways provide enough space for the operator to walk around the equipment for operation and maintenance. Intermediate tank is a type buffering tank, part of this tank is for mud recycling, and other parts are used for mud storage. Operators can easily tell how many compartment in this tank.
The premixing tank is used to mix drilling fluids. It always is connected with the jet mixer unit. The mixing pumps suck liquid from mud tank and send liquid back again with added mud materials from the hopper. Thus the pump should be able to suck the drilling mud from anywhere in the mud tank used for mixing and storage.
Therefore, in the mixing tank, there are two groups of pipelines, one for sucking, and the other one is for sending liquid back. Mug agitators and mud guns are always installed on the mixing tank.
Though, the inner structure of the above tanks is different, the outer dimension and design are always the same for purpose of easy transportation and assembling.