US-12618299-B1 - Drill cuttings composite core manufacturing method and apparatus

Abstract

A drill cuttings composite core apparatus, system, and method that may utilize sieve shaker equipped with a solvent wash system to separate, clean, and size cuttings; a centrifugal mill equipped with a 12 tooth rotor and 1.0 mm ring sieve; a compactor mold that may be 1.5 inches in diameter and up to 6 inches long; dual piston compactor with independent air control valves; and a spacer on top of a bottom piston that may allow compacted core to be pushed up through top of mold for easy removal with no special tools or handling.

Inventors

• Timothy C Svarczkopf

Assignees

• Imperative Chemical Partners, Inc.

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20250610

Claims (1)

1. 1 . A method of creating a drill cuttings composite artificial core sample comprising the steps: collecting drill cuttings; utilizing a sieve shaker to separate said drill cuttings to a uniform size of said drill cuttings; utilizing a sieving stack to separate coarser cutting from said uniform cuttings creating a composite; utilizing a centrifugal mill to recombine said composite forming a composite core material; placing said composite core material in a mold having a top and bottom; placing said mold in a piston compactor having a top piston for applying downward pressure on said composite core material and bottom piston for applying upward pressure to said composite core material; forming said drill cuttings composite artificial core sample by said applying downward pressure on said composite core material and said applying upward pressure to said composite core material; and removing said mold from said piston compactor.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/883,088, filed on Sep. 12, 2024, currently pending, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/077,433, filed on Dec. 8, 2022, now U.S. Pat. No. 12,116,851, issued on Oct. 15, 2024, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/343,072, filed on Jun. 9, 2021, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,549,322, issued on Jan. 10, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/203,003, filed on Mar. 16, 2021, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,060,364, issued on Jul. 13, 2021, in which priority is claimed from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/021,343 filed on May 7, 2020. Each of the applications listed above is expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention In general, the present invention relates to oil and gas well fracturing. More particularly, the present invention provides an apparatus, system, and method to provide statistically significant and reliable population of core samples for running geochemistry experiments to measure the interaction of hydraulic fracturing fluids on rocks from the varied geochemical thermal maturity windows by using cuttings from the drilling process of the well and or wells. 2. Description of the Prior Art It is desirable while performing drilling operations to understand the geophysical properties of the earth to be drilled. A core sample is a cylindrical section of a naturally occurring portion of the earth. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, for example sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube called a core drill. Doing so requires setting up a drilling rig to obtain a core sample and drilling to the depth where the well may be located. It costs approximately $1.5 MM to collect a single core sample utilizing traditional techniques. The net result is that it is too expensive and not logistically possible to get a statistically significant population of core samples for running geochemistry experiments to measure the interaction of hydraulic fracturing fluids on rocks from the varied geochemical thermal maturity windows where unconventional shale deposits are located. In order to develop a hydraulic fracturing fluid with the intent of increasing well productivity via an imbibition displacement production mechanism, hundreds to thousands of possible fluid combinations need to be tested on core from each thermal maturity window. Conventional oil reservoir sandstone cores have porosities ranging from 10% to 20% and permeability ranging from 500 millidarcies to 2.5 darcies. These commercially available cores, such as but not limited to Berea Sandstone for example, are robust enough that single core samples can be cleaned and reused for fluid development studies. Reusing single core for fluid studies is not possible for unconventional oil reservoir shale cores as porosities range from only 2% to 12% and permeabilities range from 100 nanodarcies to 10 millidarcies. The smaller pore size and unstable clay content make it impossible to reuse native core from unconventional wells. Also, fluid studies on native core are of limited value with regard to unconventional shale because native core contains decompression fractures that occur in the process of bringing the samples to surface. Furthermore, native core plugs do not represent a statistically relevant population of data for the well bore geochemistry compared to composite core. For example, calcite filled fractures are commonly observed in native core plugs. Approximately 50% of native core plugs have natural fractures, which can skew results. It is also likely that pressure relief expansion in going from formation pressure to atmospheric pressure causes the cores to crack from decompression. And still, it also takes much longer to run the experiments on native core plugs. The effective permeability loss is much greater for native core plugs than composite core plugs. The Fann LSM 2100 Linear Swell Meter compactor represents the only commercially available prior art for making any type of core from drill cuttings. The LSM 2100 compactor has the following flaws, which result in LSM 2100 compactor making core plugs that are unacceptable for industry accepted core flood apparatus, and which cause the LSM 2100 compactor generated core plugs to have unacceptable reproducibility errors for the linear swell experiment or core flood experiments. There are prior art devices such as the LSM 2100 compactor that generate a core. However, they are not sized correctly for core flood experiments. The LSM 2100 generated core apparatus utilizes 20 grams of cuttings to produce a core that is 1⅛″ diameter by ⅝″ long. Core holders for industry accepted core flood experiments utilize core that is either 1″ in diameter or 1.5″ in diameter. Industry accepted core flood apparat