A method for determining a property of a formation, including the steps: drilling a well in the formation, collecting drill cuttings from the well, taking a digital image of each drill cutting, entering each digital image to a trained first model that outputs a predicted lithology class of each drill cutting from each digital image, taking a random number of X-ray diffraction (XRD) images of the drill cuttings, while at least one XRD image is selected from each lithology class, entering each XRD image and the corresponding digital image into a trained second model that predicts a property of the drill cuttings, and determining the property of the formation by determining the properties of the drill cuttings as a function of the depth of the drill cuttings.

Methods and systems for separating mud from drill cuttings are disclosed. The method includes collecting drill cuttings from a shale shaker or a wellhead, placing the drill cuttings in a fluid that matches the fluid in the drilling mud, and filtering the drill cuttings through a sieve having a first mesh size. The method further includes placing the filtered drill cuttings in a sieve basket having a second mesh size, wherein the second mesh size is smaller than the first mesh size, placing the sieve basket in a vessel, and adding the fluid to completely submerge the drill cuttings in the fluid. The method also includes placing the vessel including the sieve basket, the drill cuttings, and the fluid in a sonicator-shaker, and simultaneously sonicating and shaking the vessel to separate the drill cuttings from contaminants thereon.

A drill cuttings processing system including a breaker mill. The breaker mill operates to pulverize drill cuttings. The breaker mill includes an outer housing, a drum operatively positioned in the outer housing, hammers operatively positioned in the drum, and a screen configured for discharge of pulverized drill cuttings. A method includes feeding drill cuttings to the breaker mill. The breaker mill is located at a drilling rig site or is attached to a drilling rig. The method includes pulverizing the drill cuttings within the breaker mill.

A system includes a flow line connected to a fluid and a suction line in fluid communication with the flow line, wherein the fluid is to carry cuttings from a borehole. The system also includes a flow line pump to move fluid via the suction line onto a surface of a cuttings separation conveyor, wherein the surface of the cuttings separation conveyor comprises a separation screen. The system also includes a cuttings container positioned to collect a portion of the cuttings from the separation conveyor.

A method, system and cleaning solutions for the ultrasonic cleaning of drill cuttings and the resulting cleaned drill solids is described. The drill cuttings are characterized by their liquid/solid composition, texture of solids and size of particulates. A cleaning solution formula having surfactant(s) and viscosity agent(s) is selected based on the characterization of drill cuttings. Drill cuttings are contacted with the selected cleaning solution and subjected to ultrasonic vibrations simultaneously for a period of treatment and vibration time. Contaminants from drill cuttings are removed to beneficial use standards and the resulting cleaned drill solids may be reused at the well site. The cleaning may occur at a well site in conjunction with drilling activity and the cleaning solution may be changed to adapt to changes in the drill mud and/or cuttings characteristics.

A process for producing a base oil composition particularly adapted for use in oil-base drilling mud compositions. The process includes contacting drilling waste containing an oil-base mud phase with a solvent to produce a mixture of liquids and solids, separating the two phases, partially evaporating the liquids phase to produce an oil base composition substantially lacking low molecular weight carbon chain compounds and also lacking significant concentrations of benzene, toluene, xylene, and/or ethyl benzene, and having increased closed-cup flashpoint when compared to the oil-base mud phase in the drilling waste. The resulting base oil has enhanced health and safety characteristics for workers interacting with and otherwise exposed to the oil base composition during transporting, conditioning or using such compositions. The base oil produced and drilling methods using the recovered and recycled mud are also described.

Digital image processing a digital image of sample drill cuttings retrieved from a geological formation and related methods include identifying individual zones in the image that depict at least a predetermined minimum heterogeneity of a first physical property, extracting particles in each identified zone that depict a second physical property within a predetermined quantitative range, and measuring a third physical property of each extracted particle. The first physical property may be texture, size, color, or spectral response within the zone. The second physical property may be brightness, color, contrast, hue, saturation, or wavelet energy. The third physical property may be size or color.

The present invention provides a method for separating oily drill fluid from an oily drill cuttings slurry comprising oily drill fluid and drill cuttings. The method comprises destructively modifying at least a portion of the drill cuttings that are contacted by at least one cuttings-reactive chemical thereby disrupting attraction forces between the portion of the drill cuttings and the oily drill fluid and making it easier for mechanical cuttings treatment equipment to separate oily drill fluid from the oily drill cuttings slurry.

A method for using a heated portable vacuum slurry box to efficiently store and transport material including drill cuttings from gas and oil well sites. The slurry box generally includes a vacuum tank, a structure attached to the tank, a vertical tailgate, and a hook for pulling the slurry box onto a vehicle. The features allow for the slurry box to be meet space restriction requirements at a well site while as well as function within the environmental conditions of winter and summer seasons. The method includes a preferred method to unload the slurry box.

An exploration method starts from cuttings associated with sampling intervals and well data for a well in a subsurface formation. The cuttings are prepared and analyzed to extract textural and chemical/mineralogical data for plural fragments in each sample that is made of the cuttings in one sampling interval. The method then includes matching lithotypes of rock defined according to the textural and chemical/mineralogical data for each fragment with segments of the well data in the corresponding sampling interval to obtain correspondences between the lithotypes and depth ranges. The correspondences between the lithotypes and the depth ranges may be used as constraints for seismic data inversion.