Patent ID: 10025971

Abstract:
A method for estimating a fracability index for a geological location includes determining a fabric metric and a mineralogical composition metric for a geological sample extracted from a geological location and estimating a fracability index for the geological location from the fabric metric and the mineralogical composition metric. The fabric metric may be a grain related measurement such as grain size or angularity, or a pore-space related measurement such as pore area, diameter, aspect ratio, and circumference, or statistics associated with such measurements. In certain embodiments, determining the mineralogical composition metric includes detecting a prevalence of at least one organic proxy within the geological sample such as vanadium, iron, uranium, thorium, copper, sulfur, zinc, chromium, nickel, cobalt, lead and molybdenum. Determining the mineralogical composition metric may also include detecting a prevalence of one, two, or all of siliciclastics, carbonate and clay.