Natural gas, as a clean energy, is a practical way to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Increasing the development and utilization of natural gas will inevitably require drilling more production wells, which will produce a large amount of waste mud and cuttings. Taking the Sichuan-Chongqing region as a case study, the treatment plan of the drill cuttings mixture produced during the drilling process utilising water-based drilling fluid was studied from the perspective of the contractor. With the objective of economic optimisation, the economics of two water-based drilling cutting treatment and recycling schemes (curing and mixing process and breaking gel filter press process for brick making) were compared and analyzed. In the curing and mixing process, the amount of gel breaker required is about 11 kg/m3, and the amount of curing agent is preferably 10% of the mass of water-based drilling cuttings to be treated. In the breaking gel filter press process, the dosage of gel breaker is 19 kg/m3, and the pressure filtration is carried out under a pressure of 0.8 MPa. The results of the main cost component calculations for the two processes show that when the contractors processing capacity is greater than 2100 m3, it is more favorable to use the breaking gel filter press brick making process; otherwise, it is better to adopt the curing and mixing brick making process.