Studying the pore space of cuttings by NMR and μCT

Abstract

Evaluating the formation quality by deriving porosity, pore size, and permeability from cuttings instead of drill cores is a promising and challenging field of research established in the past decade. Challenges with cuttings are their small and irregular size rendering them unsuitable for e.g. standard permeability measurements. Permeability can be estimated from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements. NMR measurements on cuttings are especially challenging 1) because the total NMR signal is very low due to small sample sizes and 2) because the high ratio of outer surface to volume leads to a significant contribution of interstitial water to the NMR signal, which thus distorts the informative NMR signal from within the pore space. The aim of the study is to evaluate the use of NMR in combination with micro-computed tomography (μCT) as a method to determine the pore space characteristics of small drill cuttings from the Bückeberg Formation (German Wealden). After accurate removal of interstitial water and a CT based sorting, it was possible to measure NMR signals representative for the individual pore sizes. The representiveness of the measured values was verified by simulations of the NMR signals in pore spaces determined via μCT. Porosity, relaxation time distributions, and permeability were calculated for cuttings assemblages with large, medium, small, and very small pores.