onventional cores, or whole cores, are solid cylinders of rock that can be brought to the surface as a single piece. These cores are used to model reservoir behavior to optimize production, based on the analysis of core porosity, permeability, fluid saturation, grain density, lithology and texture. However, the process of obtaining and analyzing cores is a notoriously costly one, calling for rig time, crew mobilization to site and subsequent analysis.
Drill cuttings, on the other hand, are removed from wells and brought to the surface in drilling mud and are often examined to make a mud log of the subsurface materials penetrated at various depths. Even though cuttings are basically the same material as cores, many operators have traditionally been suspicious of drawing reliable data and conclusions from drill cuttings.
The Cuttings Alliance, a consortium of Stratagraph, CoreSpec Alliance and PetroScale Reservoir Solutions, is working on shifting that attitude. The aim of these oil and gas service companies is to offer their clients information worthy of a coring job for a smaller price.
Together, the team developed a process that provides true insight into a well to help the production model and inform future completion work in the same field.
With the industry shifting in recent years toward long horizontal drilling, operators are increasingly finding traditional core samples less meaningful, derived as they are from one distinct spot that may end up 7,000 ft away, laterally, from the continuation of the wellbore. Because cuttings are a natural byproduct of the drilling process, the Cuttings Alliance has devised a process that merely calls for the operator to collect what they already have—drill cuttings.
From that point on, the Cuttings Alliance manages all logistics and works together as one entity to bring mud logging, cuttings analysis and sophisticated well interpretation under one roof to reduce costs and improve well productivity in the field.

This approach improves overall process efficiency and creates an opportunity to remove three separate entities and their associated mark-ups and variations in quality standards to deliver meaningful, relevant and actionable information. At the end of their engagement with the Cuttings Alliance, the operator is not just provided with more data, but rather a set of conclusions that advise on which data are important and relevant to improve the operator’s completions and evaluations going forward.



In the current economic environment, there is hesitation about expenditure on scientific analysis. As such, fewer rock samples are being taken for direct measurement and calibration. Although less data can be derived from cuttings in comparison with a whole core, experience has demonstrated that when coupled with secondary calibration data or mud logging data, a strong model can be built to the extent that the cuttings can be used to improve engineering solutions and remove a tremendous amount of cost from drilling operations.
Essentially, the Cuttings Alliance creates a workflow and a program that can help operators reduce costs, while still maintaining the quality of data that are required to properly develop an asset.