Total Reclaim Systems (TRS), provider of mud tank cleaning services, has introduced the PitGun, a system that cleans and removes waste material from mud tanks remotely. By using the PitGun to carry out this process remotely, operators and rig owners no longer need to have personnel enter mud pits or tanks to manually break up compacted solids that build up on the floor, beneath pipework, and in tank corners during the drilling process.
The PitGun is a system that cleans and removes waste material from mud tanks remotely.
For many years, conventional mud tank and pit cleaning methods typically required personnel to enter mud pits and tanks to clean them, posing a major safety concern and sometimes involving lengthy permit-to-work procedures, the company explains. Although rotating-head automated cleaning head systems have been used to clean tank interiors with varying degrees of success, TRS says they simply cannot effectively clear the compacted solids on the floor or in difficult-to-reach corners, nor do they remove waste materials. Invariably, it still requires personnel to enter the pit to manually break up the solids that cling to the tank’s interior.
Traditional cleaning systems use large volumes of fluid, creating a great deal of waste material that must then be removed, stored, transported, and re-injected or shipped to shore for processing and disposal, TRS says.
For the past two years, TRS has been designing and manufacturing a remote-controlled cleaning system that removes compacted solids build-up, thereby making entry into the pit a thing of the past. Here is how it works: a single operator manipulates the PitGun’s cleaning jets remotely while standing outside of the tank. The operator controls the volume, pressure, and direction of the jet nozzles, making it easy to concentrate on cleaning problematic areas, including solids build-up and beneath pipework. With the PitGun’s floor-orientated jet head, operators can clean difficult areas without entering the tank.
