Plugging

This is a critical issue when soft and loosely consolidated rocks are drilled. Conventional laboratory coring tools simply fail in such cases. Other traditional methods, such as freezing samples to keep them coherent, have the detrimental effect of altering the rock properties of the core plugs to be analysed.

Important developments at ResLab

ResLab has developed the tools and the procedures to drill unconsolidated core plug samples without any pretreatment. The equipment is based on a standard column-drilling machine. Compressed air is used to clean the bit without eroding the plug. Plugs are provided with a heat shrinkable tube inside the core barrel. Optional, an expandable plug can be mounted when drilling into the inner barrel. This prevents the drilled plug from slipping out of the inner barrel.

Significant improvements in data quality

The ResLab plugging equipment makes core analysis and rock mechanics testing of unconsolidated sands more practical, more repeatable and more realistic in terms of the preservation of rock properties. Enhancement of this basic yet fundamental service at ResLab, means that we can offer our clients the highest quality petrophysical data from the most friable of unconsolidated reservoirs.