f Application of Combined Cuttings Gas/Oil Analysis, Rapid XRF and High Resolution Photography to Evaluation of Unconventional Reservoirs

Exploration and exploitation of increasingly complex reservoirs, along with technical challenges associated with optimizing horizontal wells into tight or unconventional pay sections benefits from new approaches involving additional data collected in a cost effective and time effective manner. Herein we describe one such methodology applicable to samples that are historically viewed as being of limited value, namely, unpreserved cuttings. The rock is photographed under visible and UV light, crushed and analyzed for included hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon species with a sensitive mass spectrometry system, and finally probed for its elemental composition with a customized XRF analyzer.