Method for processing sampled proppant during hydraulic fracturing
AssigneeGti Energy
InventorsDebotyam Maity, Jordan Ciezobka
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for processing proppant from a well. A plurality of proppant samples are collected during drilling of a well for imaging analysis. In addition to imaging analysis a further correction factor is determined for the samples using additional analysis on a portion of the samples. Determining and applying the correction factor to the imaging results provides a more accurate proppant log. The additional analysis can be by scanning electron microscopy, such as for differentiating the silicon proppant particles from other elemental particles resulting from the drilling.
Claims18
A method for processing proppant from a well, the method comprising the steps of:
- collecting a plurality of proppant samples during drilling of a well;
- imaging the plurality of proppant samples collected to obtain baseline proppant values within the plurality of proppant samples;
- analyzing a sample subset of the plurality of proppant samples to determine an elemental composition of the sample subset to distinguish proppant from other mineral particles in the sample subset, wherein the analyzing includes imaging the sample subset using an imaging technique that generates elemental composition information;
- determining a correction factor from the elemental composition, wherein the correction factor is an element ratio of proppant to calcium and/or barium in the sample subset of the plurality of proppant samples;
- and
- applying the correction factor to the imaging results to correct the baseline proppant values.
A method for processing proppant from a well, the method comprising the steps of:
- collecting a plurality of proppant samples during drilling of a well;
- imaging the plurality of proppant samples collected to obtain baseline proppant values within the plurality of proppant samples;
- establishing proppant log data of the baseline proppant values;
- analyzing at least a sample subset of the plurality of proppant samples by applying scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to the sample subset to obtain a SEM elemental composition analysis of the sample subset to distinguish proppant from other mineral particles in the sample subset;
- generating a regression model correction factor by comparing the imaging results to the SEM elemental analysis;
- and
- validating or correcting the proppant log data with the regression model correction factor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.