Patent ID: 11860137
Assignee: SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 5:
6. A system for detecting the presence of natural hydrocarbon compounds in drilling cuttings, the system comprising:
a drilling bit configured for cutting into rock in a borehole;
a drilling cuttings collector configured for recovering drilling cuttings that were mixed with an oil-based drilling fluid tagged with a synthetic chemical standard having a known concentration during drilling;
a hydrocarbon detection unit configured for extracting hydrocarbon compounds from the drilling cuttings;
a gas-chromatograph equipped with a mass-spectrometer configured for:
determining a concentration of hydrocarbon compounds present in the tagged oil-based drilling fluid, wherein the concentration corresponds to a first hydrocarbon signal;
determining a concentration of hydrocarbon compounds present in the drilling cuttings that were mixed with the tagged oil-based drilling fluid, wherein the concentration corresponds to a second hydrocarbon signal; and
a computing system configured for:
determining, based on the difference between the first hydrocarbon signal from the second hydrocarbon signal, an initial concentration of natural hydrocarbons in the drilling cuttings prior to mixing with the tagged oil-based drilling fluid.