Isothermal Oxidation for Wellsite Near-Real-Time Assessment of Organic Matter Concentration of Source Rocks.

Abstract

Direct combustion of cuttings collected at the rig site can help identifying the presence and assess the variation of organic matter into a drilled rock, with minimum sample preparation and signal processing. This near-real-time data provides key information to optimize and de-risk critical decisions such as selection of sidewall coring points, wireline logging programs and sweet spots identification. The method is based on the isothermal oxidation of the sample, done directly at the wellsite and with field deployable equipment. Extensive lab tests have been done to validate both the measurement and the full workflow. Samples have been measured both with this wellsite dedicated equipment and with advanced lab devices. The results between the different methods have been compared and showed good agreement. The workflow has been applied several times to actual wellsite analysis. The results of one of these cases have been illustrated in this paper, together with the integration of the well site TOC with different datastream (i.e. advanced surface fluid logging and continuous isotope logging).