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Inside Ingrain Q3 Newsletter

Nora Villarreal — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:53:30 GMT

In a shale system, it is vital to know the relative permeability of oil and gas that is above the bubble point. Critical gas saturation matters to production engineers and reservoir engineers in planning for production and estimating reserves.

The plot shown above shows a gas-oil relative permeability trend of the type that Ingrain computes in shale rock samples. The end points are important for determining residual water saturation and irreducible water saturation.

Ingrain has experience with gas shales that produce water and calculating the relative permeability of water and gas. This is important because the impact of water saturation or other liquids can greatly influence the total gas production.

Ingrain’s porosity and permeability results in shale compare more favorably to published trends than results from physical core lab experiments (see below).

For a more in-depth look, click here to download Ingrain's SCAL in Shale presentation.

For more information about Ingrain's SCAL services in shale and other rock types, please contact Ingrain, email your information request to info@ingrainrocks.com or call 713.993.9795 ext 1007.

Shale expert Joel Walls joins Ingrain as Director, Technical Resources for Unconventional Reservoirs (read more...)

SCA President Gary Sinclair named

Ingrain regional manager for the Middle East and North Africa (read more...)

Ingrain's new Abu Dhabi digital rock physics lab is on track to open this month. The new lab is already providing CoreHD® high definition whole core scanning and logging for operators in the Middle East.

Digital rock physics brings core analysis to the digital oilfield is the topic of an Ingrain article in the July 2010 issue of Hart's E&P (read more...)

Ingrain's Henrique Tono presenting at Hart Energy's DUG Eagle Ford conference on October 5 on Reservoir Characterization, Location of Sweet Spots and Producing Mechanisms (read more...)

Visit Ingrain At These Upcoming Events:

HGS Technofest 2010 • Booth #21
July 22 • Houston, TX

AAPG ICE • Booth #825
Sept 13-15 • Florence, Italy

SPE ATCE • Booth #1454
Sept 20-22 • Florence, Italy

DUG Eagle Ford • Booth #223
Oct 5&6 • San Antonio, TX

16-Jul-10 2:53 PM

Computer Simulations of Fluid Flow in Sediment: From Images to Permeability

Nora Villarreal — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Stanford University's Jack Dvorkin and Ingrain's Jonas Tolke, Chuck Baldwin, Yaoming Mu, Naum Derzhi, Qian Fang and Avrami Grader discuss the digital experimentation of flow simulations and permeability calculations in the latest issue of The Leading Edge.

Please see attached document

13-Jan-10 1:00 PM

From Micro to Reservoir Scale: Permeability from Digital Experiments

Nora Villarreal — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Stanford University's Jack Dvorkin and Ingrain's Naum Derzhi, Qian Fang, Amos Nur, Boaz Nur, Avrami Grader, Chuck Baldwin, Henrique Tono and Elizabeth Diaz explain how digital rock physics can reliably enhance data obtained from physical laboratories and reduce the number of complicated and costly measurements being used today.

Please see attached document

1-Dec-09 11:00 AM

Capturing Digital Rock Properties for Reservoir Modeling

Nora Villarreal — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:00:00 GMT

The latest issue of World Oil magazine features an Ingrain case study co-authored with Noble Energy. The case study discusses how comparative analysis shows that a digital and real core compare favorably when digital and real experiments are run.

Please see attached document

1-Oct-09 11:00 AM

Digital Rock Physics Bridges Scales of Measurement

Nora Villarreal — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Ingrain's digital rock physics lab images the details of rock structure at the pore scale and uses these images to accurately simulate physical experiments in the computer. Only recently have powerful 3D scanners and computing clusters rendered this concept commercially viable on such complex physical objects as natural sediment. At Ingrain, different properties of rock are measured and interrelated at a varying spatial scales. This is hardly possible in the physical laboratory or in the well, where the scale of measurement is fixed.

Please see attached document

15-Sep-09 11:00 AM

Revolutionizing Core Analysis

Nora Villarreal — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Houston-based Ingrain uses latest-generation 3D CT (computed tomography) to quickly and accurately determine absolute and relative permeability, resistivity, elastic properties, pore and grain statistics. Results are available in days, they claim, even in ultra-low permeability sandstones, complex carbonates and shales.

Please see attached document

15-Sep-09 11:00 AM

Special Core Analysis Reinvented: 3D Nano-scale Imaging and Computing of Reservoir Rock Properties and Fluid Flow

Nora Villarreal — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Digital imaging and computation revolutionised photography by making film cameras obsolete and moving image processing from chemical darkrooms into computers. Ingrain, a Houston-based technology start-up, is using digital imaging and computation to reinvent special core analysis. At Ingrain's digital rock physics lab, latest-generation CT (computed tomography) scanners capture in 3D the actual fabric of reservoir rock samples; the pore-space and mineral matrix geometry fabric at resolutions as high as 100 nanometers.

Please see attached document

11-Aug-09 10:00 AM

Finding Huge Potential in Rocks' Tiniest Cracks

Nora Villarreal — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Houston-based Ingrain uses nano-scale imaging technology to rapidly measure the porosity, permeability and fluid flow characteristics of oil and gas shale formations.

Click here to read article

31-Dec-08 10:00 AM

New Technology Continues to Amaze

Nora Villarreal — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

With capital at their disposal, operators and service companies pulled out all the stops in 2008.

Click here to read article

1-Dec-08 10:00 AM

New Rock Physics Company Ingrain Pioneers Digital Rock Properties Measurement

Nora Villarreal — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

At this year's SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, first time attendee Ingrain brings the upstream industry a new paradigm in rock properties measurement that allows operators to create smarter, more efficient field development plans.

The oil and gas industry's future lies in maximizing fields already in production and developing unconventional assets - opportunities that come with a range of technical challenges that previously prevented their development. It is imperative that the industry develop new, digital technologies that allow operators not just overcome the challenges of increasingly complex assets - but allow them to do so efficiently and effectively.

Ingrain was formed in 2007 to commercialize a game-changing technology that is based on a novel approach that unites advanced imaging techniques with patented computational methods. First, high-resolution (< micron) images of rock fragments, such as cores, plugs or drill cuttings, are obtained. The images are then processed to accurately delineate the sample's pore space. The resulting "digital rock" is then subjected to virtual experiments that rigorously simulate physical reservoir conditions, such as flow properties. Based on patented algorithms, these computations determine a range of basic and complex rock properties, including porosity, absolute permeability, capillary behavior, relative permeability, electrical conductivity, elastic constants and velocities, and grain and pore-size distributions.

Ingrain's digital process allows operators to make quicker, more informed decisions. Conventional reservoir rock-property measurements begin by stopping on-site operations to obtain a core sample - an incredibly costly procedure. This sample is then sent to a lab, where physical experiments are conducted - a time consuming process that greatly reduces the utility of the resulting data in on-site operations. Further, the physical experiments cause the rock sample to deteriorate; meaning only a limited number of experiments can be conducted. This limits the number of reservoir scenarios that can be tested and the amount of information that can be obtained from an operator's reservoir.

Key benefits of Ingrain's technology include:

•   Results that can be used in operational decisions: Ingrain's digital process enables near real-time computational experiments to provide definitive results for processes like multiphase fluid flow that currently take days or weeks in a physical laboratory. Multiple measurements also can be taken across a reservoir, allowing reservoir engineers to obtain continuous logs of permeability and other computed properties.

•   Accurate Measurements on a Wide Range of Rock Types: The imaging component of Ingrain's method vastly expands the types of rock for which properties can be measured, ranging from the most friable oil sands to the tightest gas sands, as well as carbonates.

•   Reduced Need for Costly Coring Operations: Ingrain's technology is conducive to smaller fragments of rock, such as drill cuttings, that simply cannot be processed in a physical laboratory. Measuring physical properties from cuttings greatly reduces and often even eliminates the need for costly and risky coring operations.

•   Enhanced Information on Mature Fields: Vast repositories of already stored drill cuttings and cores can now be efficiently mined to populate reservoir models with accurate physical properties that are crucial to formulating field management strategies.

•   Non-Destructive Procedure Allows Repeated Tests on the Same Sample: Ingrain's digital rocks can withstand endless virtual experiments, compared to physical samples that often break down under the stress of traditional tests. Working with a digital rock ensures that the established relationships among all measured properties accurately characterize the rock sample.

By providing operators with unprecedented insight into their reservoirs, Ingrain's technology is allowing upstream operators to more effectively develop their fields today.

4-Nov-08 10:00 AM

Applying The "New" Math (Nickles New Technology Magazine, October 2008)

Nora Villarreal — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Proponents of a new method of determining rock permeability are quick to correct those who describe the process as "measuring" permeability. "It's not measuring, but computing," says California geophysicist Amos Nur, the retired Stanford University professor helping to lead the effort to commercialize the new method.

Please see attached document

1-Oct-08 10:00 AM

Calculating the Properties of Rock (Digital Energy Journal, Jun-Jul 2008)

Nora Villarreal — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

New rock physics company Ingrain has developed a new method to calculate rock porosity and permeability by taking a high-resolution scan of small rock sample.

Please see attached document

1-Jun-08 9:00 AM