Polymer nano-clays as multifunctional mud logging barcode tracers
AssigneeAramco Services Company
InventorsWei Wang, Hooisweng Ow, Sehoon Chang
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method includes introducing into a drilling fluid a plurality of tags having a first clay nanoparticle and a first polymer embedded into the clay nanoparticle and circulating the drilling fluid and tags through a well during a drilling operation that creates formation cuttings such that the tags interact with the formation cuttings, creating tagged cuttings. The returned cuttings are collected from the circulating drilling fluid at a surface of the well, and the tags on the returned cuttings are detected to identify the tagged cuttings. The method also includes correlating the tagged cuttings with a drill depth in the well from the drilling operation.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- introducing a plurality of tags into a drilling fluid, each tag comprising:
- a first clay nanoparticle;
- and
- a first polymer embedded into the clay nanoparticle;
- circulating the drilling fluid and tags through a well during a drilling operation that creates formation cuttings such that the tags interact with the formation cuttings, creating tagged cuttings;
- collecting returned cuttings from the circulating drilling fluid at a surface of the well;
- detecting the tags on the returned cuttings to identify the tagged cuttings;
- and
- correlating the tagged cuttings with a drill depth in the well from the drilling operation.
A method comprising:
- providing at least two different tags, wherein each of the different tags comprises a polymer with a different molecular weight embedded into a clay nanoparticle;
- circulating each of the different tags with a drilling fluid through a well while drilling different sections of the well, wherein the different tags interact with formation cuttings during drilling and circulating, creating different tagged cuttings;
- collecting returned cuttings from the circulating drilling fluid at a surface of the well;
- detecting the presence of the different tags on the returned cuttings to identify the different tagged cuttings;
- correlating each of the different tagged cuttings with the different sections of the well;
- and
- generating a log of the well including properties of the different tagged cuttings mapped along the corresponding different sections of the well.
A method, comprising:
- forming a plurality of tags, comprising:
- providing a polymer solution comprising first polymer molecules having a first molecular weight;
- mixing clay nanoparticles in the polymer solution;
- waiting for an amount of adsorption of the first polymer molecules adsorbing onto the clay nanoparticles;
- separating the polymer adsorbed clay nanoparticles from the polymer solution;
- and
- functionalizing the surface of the polymer adsorbed clay nanoparticles to increase hydrophobicity of the polymer adsorbed clay nanoparticles;
- and
- mixing the tags with a drilling fluid.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.