Oil-based mud drill cutting cleaning for infrared spectroscopy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10151674-B2
Application number	US-201715410045-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 19, 2017
Priority date	Jan 19, 2017
Publication date	Dec 11, 2018
Grant date	Dec 11, 2018

Abstract

Oil-based mud cuttings are cleaned of drilling fluid and mud additives. After sorting and rinsing the cuttings with diesel, the cuttings are put in a syringe, which is repeatedly filled and emptied of diesel. The cuttings are then washed in the syringe with pentane. The cuttings are then crushed and exposed to a solvent a second time. Instead of placing the cuttings in the syringe, alternatively, the cuttings remain on a sieve and the syringe is used to spray the cuttings with diesel, followed by pentane.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for recovering hydrocarbons from a formation, comprising the steps of:
collecting a formation sample comprising cuttings from a borehole traversing the formation;
exposing the sample to a first cleaning fluid at a fluid pressure;
forming the sample cleaned with the first cleaning fluid into particles, wherein the forming comprises crushing, grinding or a combination thereof;
analyzing the sample;
characterizing an organic or inorganic content of the formation sample based on the analysis; and
placing at least a portion of the sample into a syringe and wherein the sample is continuously exposed to the first cleaning fluid by drawing the first cleaning fluid into the syringe while the at least a portion of the sample is within the syringe followed by increasing the fluid pressure within the syringe using a plunger to expel the first cleaning fluid from the syringe.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
exposing the sample to a second cleaning fluid at greater than ambient fluid pressure, thereby removing at least a portion of the first cleaning fluid from the sample.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the exposing the sample to the second cleaning fluid comprises vacuum filtration.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sample is exposed to the first cleaning fluid at a fluid pressure of at least 5 psi.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first cleaning fluid is continuously in contact with the sample during said exposing the sample to the first cleaning fluid.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said exposing the sample to the first cleaning fluid is repeated until the expelled first cleaning fluid appears to be a color of the first cleaning fluid.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sample is exposed to the first cleaning fluid by expelling the first cleaning fluid from the syringe at pressures of at least 5 psi onto the sample.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first cleaning fluid is an oil.

9. The method of claim 2 , wherein the second cleaning fluid is a solvent selected from a group consisting of: pentane, hexane, heptane, acetone, toluene, benzene, xylene, chloroform and dichloromethane.

10. The method of claim 2 , wherein the second cleaning fluid is pentane.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the first cleaning fluid is held in a covered reservoir and reused.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the covered reservoir comprises a dome-shaped lid and a closable opening through which the syringe can access the first cleaning fluid, the opening being positioned away from a top of the dome-shaped lid.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, prior to said exposing, removing particles larger and smaller than a predetermined size range from the sample.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
exposing the grinded or crushed sample to a cleaning fluid.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sample is exposed to the first cleaning fluid at a fluid pressure greater than ambient pressure.

Assignees

• Schlumberger Technology Corp

Inventors

• Loan Mary Ellen
• Herron Michael
• Akkurt Ridvan
• Pomerantz Andrew Emil

Classifications

• G01N2001/2866

  Grinding or homogeneising · CPC title

• G01N1/286

  involving mechanical work, e.g. chopping, disintegrating, compacting, homogenising (microtomes G01N1/06; pulverising in general B02C; mixing in general B01F) · CPC title

• G01N21/3577

  for analysing liquids, e.g. polluted water · CPC title

• G01N1/34 Primary

  Purifying; Cleaning {(processes or apparatus for extracting or separating nucleic acids from biological samples C12N15/1003)} · CPC title

• E21B49/02

  by mechanically taking samples of the soil · CPC title