Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - carbonate

The expression "pre-salt" refers to an aggregation of rocks located offshore along large portions of the Brazilian and West African coasts, it forms a carbonate rock interval that ranges under an extensive layer of salt which, in certain areas of the Brazilian coast, can be as much as 2,000 meters thick. The total depth of these rocks formations, or the distance between the surface of the sea and the oil reservoirs under the salt layer, can be as much as 7,000 meters. Drilling in the pre-salt is extremely complex and may require multiple trips being made by the drill bit in order to drill short lengths due to different rock layers with varying degrees of hardness. Another challenge is that the salt is very corrosive and is also plastic, as you drill down, it tends to close the well walls.

Recently a research project managed by the Geosciences Institute of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) for BG Brazil chose a solution for petrographic knowledge and data management, developed by trading partners Endeeper and Carl Zeiss. The project titled: "Stratigraphical-Sedimentogical-Petrological Integrated Study of Rift Section of Santos and Campos Basins, in the east of Brazil” used a solution that integrates Petroledge and RockViewer systems of Endeeper with the Axio Imager A2 Pol microscope, equipped with AxioCam MRc scientific camera and ZEN Lite 2011 system from Carl Zeiss. Petroledge is a knowledge system for management of reservoir petrographic information.