Schlumberger opens Houston facility providing core analysis services

Apr 17, 2012

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Schlumberger officially opened its Houston Geoengineering Laboratory on 5 April, the latest addition to the company’s global network of laboratories offering reservoir core analysis services. The 30,000-sq-ft facility features a conventional core analysis laboratory for the measurement of porosity, saturation and permeability. Equipment in the laboratory supports a more efficient analysis process, such as using a CT scanner to see inside the core. “This allows us to get information about the core that we can’t see from the outside,” said Mark Andersen, Schlumberger core physics domain head. “You don’t want to go through core analysis tests and cut the plug open and in the end discover something you weren’t expecting.”

The facility also houses a core analysis laboratory for performing tests covering capillary pressure, relative permeability, electrical properties, nuclear magnetic resonance, enhanced oil recovery evaluations and more. “Relative permeability is one of the more complicated tests that’s done in the special core analysis lab. In a steady-state relative permeability apparatus, we are flowing two phases through the sample and measuring the permeability to each of those two phases,” Mr Andersen explained during a media tour.

Additionally, the Houston laboratory performs a number of TerraTek rock mechanics and core analysis services, primarily geomechanics, for unconventional reservoirs.

“As clients explore more complex reservoirs, they are demanding improved reservoir characterization, and the need for core analysis has grown dramatically,” said Sameh Hanna, president, Schlumberger Testing Services. “In the laboratory, we are focusing on the full life of the reservoir and offering the latest technology to help our clients improve hydrocarbon recovery and maximize production.”

Schlumberger operates additional core analysis laboratories in Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, Poland, Venezuela and Salt Lake City, Utah.

TerraTek is a trademark of Schlumberger.

Editorial coordinator Katherine Scott contributed to this report.