A shale vRock. The pores are green. The vRock shows porosity of 0.08—i.e., 0.08 cubic centimeters of void per cubic centimeter (8%). Source: Ingrain. Click to enlarge.

The CrossBeam workstation, already applied in the material, life sciences, and semiconductor industries, generates high-resolution 3D images that are used to create the Ingrains’s vRock (a complete digital capture of the actual fabric of the original rock sample) digital reservoir rocks from shale rock samples. Ingrain then uses proprietary simulation technologies to analyze the samples for fluid flow. The company has been using micro-CT (Computed Tomography) technology for its imaging work.

Ingrain’s process works equally well with samples taken from core plugs, oil sands samples or drill cuttings to calculate:

• Porosity: Vv/Vt (% total, connected and isolated porosity)
• Absolute permeability: Permeability (mD) in X, Y and Z directions
• Electrical properties: Formation factor (S/m) in X, Y and Z directions
• Elastic properties: Bulk modulus (K), compressional velocity (Vp), Young’s modulus (E), Shear modulus (G), Shear velocity (Vs), Poisson’s ratio

The AURIGA CrossBeam workstation integrates a focused ion beam (FIB) system and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) in one instrument. The FIB system acts like a nanoscale scalpel to remove very thin slices of material from a sample—such as shale rock—while the SEM provides high resolution images of the rock’s structure, revealing and distinguishing between voids and minerals. The AURIGA FIB/SEM fully automates these functions to produce consecutive image slices as thin as 5 nm, which can be reconstructed to form a 3-D image of the rock.

The core of the AURIGA CrossBeam workstation is the proven GEMINI FE-SEM column. Its special in-lens Energy-selected Backscatter (EsB) detector generates images with superior materials contrast. Another important feature unique to CrossBeam workstations is simultaneous milling and high-resolution SEM imaging, according to Carl Zeiss.

The AURIGA also has a newly designed vacuum chamber, which includes a total of 15 ports for full analytical flexibility. An unrivaled charge compensation system enables the local application of an inert gas flush. In this way, charge build-up on non-conductive samples, such as shale, is neutralized and detection of secondary electrons (SE) as well as backscattered electrons (BSE) becomes feasible.

Ingrain was formed in 2007 to bring the petrophysical innovations of founders Dr. Amos Nur and Dr. Henrique Tono to the oil and gas industry. The science, the technology and the business concept are based on intellectual property created during 30 years of work in rock physics by Dr. Amos Nur at Stanford University. Ingrain uses advanced 3D imaging technology and patented computational methods to provide fast, accurate measurements of reservoir rock properties including porosity, absolute permeability, electrical conductivity, elastic properties and relative permeability.

In September of 2009 Ingrain secured a third round of funding totaling $15 million to advance the deployment of its digital rock physics labs and to continue its expansion into the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America.