FEI Company’s Natural Resources Business
Unit announced the successful completion of QEMSCAN WellSite field
tests with Maersk Oil, in cooperation with Qatar Petroleum. The QEMSCAN
WellSite solution provides automated, quantitative mineralogical, lithological,
and textural analysis of drill cuttings from oil and gas wells. In the field
test, the system was deployed on an off-shore jack-up drilling rig near Qatar,
where it was used to characterize carbonate and clastic geological sequences
and reservoirs.

“The field tests were conducted between
June and September 2011 in the challenging environment of an offshore drilling
platform where the system endured large temperature variations, humidity, and
vibrations on the jack-up rig, yet the QEMSCAN WellSite system was reliable,”
says Lewis Affleck, managing director, Maersk Oil Qatar.

Affleck adds, “The system’s automated
analysis and well-defined work flow delivered unbiased, quantitative
characterization of drill cuttings in less than an hour from sample collection.
Getting higher-quality information from drill cuttings helped us to make
on-site mineralogy determination with greater confidence, supporting the
porosity evaluation, and provided valuable data for post-drilling analysis. Our
field tests of the QEMSCAN WellSite solution proved it to be quite valuable,
and in particular, we see potential for its use in deep water drilling
operation, especially in complex mineralogical settings.”

The QEMSCAN WellSite analysis solution is
a rugged, portable system for on- and off-shore drilling rigs that provides
automated, quantitative analysis of cuttings produced when drilling oil and
natural gas wells. The QEMSCAN WellSite system uses scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) in a
streamlined sample preparation and analysis workflow to deliver quantitative,
consistent, statistically-valid analyses of the mineralogy, texture, and lithology
of each cuttings sample.

“This field test with Maersk Oil represents
the first successful use of the QEMSCAN WellSite system on an off-shore oil
rig. Making this technology available in such a harsh, unpredictable
environment is an important step forward to bringing advanced analysis closer
to the well site, supporting faster, better-informed decision making for the
oil and gas industry,” says Dirk van der Wal, director marketing, FEI Natural
Resources Business Unit. “We are gratified by the success of the field test and
grateful for the collaboration of Maersk Oil and Qatar Petroleum in developing
this solution. We look forward to making this technology available through mud
logging service providers worldwide.”

FEI
Company, www.fei.com