High-Grading of Drill Cutting Samples
Separating out, or “high-grading” the reservoir cuttings from drill cuttings can be an important step of the process of sample cleaning and preparation for lithological/sedimentological, petrographic (thin section), or other analyses such as PSD, XRD, or XRF. The vials containing reservoir cuttings however, commonly also contain a considerable amount of other debris from drilling (metal bit shavings, mud additives such as biotite flakes, polymer or plastic flakes, crushed walnut shells, mud filter cakes, pseudo-chips, or shale cavings from higher up in section, etc.), making high-grading not only recommended but necessary for as accurate an analysis as possible.
High-grading can be completed in the field at a rigsite, in-house at Argile Analytica, or at a client’s or third-party facility such as the AER Core Research facility.
