Case Study: Pennsylvania Operating Company achieves 96% sidewall core recovery with SLB XL-Rock large-volume rotary sidewall coring

XL-Rock Large-Volume Rotary Sidewall Cores for Tight Rock Analysis of Pennsylvania Shale

SLB worked with Pennsylvania Operating Company, an operator drilling a well in north central Pennsylvania, to collect sidewall cores that accurately represented specific shale intervals. The company needed formation samples from a black shale target for unconventional gas, but traditional sidewall cores were too small for some tight rock analyses and would have required combining multiple samples.

SLB used XL-Rock large-volume rotary sidewall coring, supported by FMI fullbore formation microimager logs to confirm core locations. The operation recovered 96 of 100 planned core points, and the larger samples provided enough rock volume to run tight rock analysis on single samples, improving measurement precision and helping the operator adopt the service as part of its standard exploration logging program.