Digital Rock Physics Results from Phase-Contrast Synchrotron-Based X-ray Microtomography

During recent years, Digital Rock Physics gained wide attention in the industry as a tool to integrate petro-physical measurements on core plugs, from routine to special core analyses. The acquisition of a sample from a producing siliciclastic gas field was performed at the Elettra synchrotron facility to obtain a significant volume in a short time. Different image processing pipelines were tested and the impact of the chosen workflow was analyzed in terms of porosity, absolute permeability, and fluid velocities’ distributions. The entire acquired volume was processed to obtain a porosity–permeability trend. SEM images were integrated to better characterize sub-resolution phases. The results were then compared to the routine core analyses (RCAs) performed on the same samples by two different laboratories and integrated with an acquisition performed at ENI X-ray imaging laboratories.