Measuring properties and amount of producible oil in shale-oil reservoir samples

1. A method for analyzing the chemical properties of a shale-oil reservoir rock, comprising:

extracting a core sample of a shale-oil reservoir rock using a weak solvent to form an extracted core sample and an extracted petroleum;

drying the extracted core sample to evaporate the weak solvent;

obtaining first data on the extracted core sample;

extracting the extracted core sample using a strong solvent to form a twice-extracted core sample and a second solvent-extracted petroleum;

drying the twice-extracted core sample to evaporate the strong solvent;

obtaining second data on the twice-extracted core sample; and

correlating the first and second data to determine producible oil quantities for the shale-oil reservoir rock.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein each solvent is an organic solvent.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising obtaining preliminary data on the core sample before the core sample has been extracted using a solvent.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

evaporating extracted petroleum to reduce the presence of the weak solvent in the extracted petroleum; and

evaporating second solvent-extracted petroleum to reduce the presence of the strong solvent in the second solvent-extracted petroleum.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

obtaining first petroleum data on the extracted petroleum; and

obtaining second petroleum data on the second solvent-extracted petroleum.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

interpreting the first and second petroleum data with the first and second data to determine producible oil quantities in the shale-oil reservoir rock.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein obtaining first petroleum data on the extracted petroleum comprises determining elemental contents of the extracted petroleum, and obtaining whole-oil gas chromatographs on the extracted petroleum.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein determining the elemental contents of the extracted petroleum comprises determining the abundance of sulfur, nickel, and vanadium in the extracted petroleum.

9. The method of claim 5 , wherein obtaining first petroleum data on the extracted petroleum comprises performing a saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes analysis on the extracted petroleum.

10. The method of claim 5 , wherein obtaining first petroleum data on the extracted petroleum comprises performing a carbon isotopic composition analysis on the extracted petroleum.

11. The method of claim 4 , further comprising filtering solids from the second solvent-extracted petroleum.

12. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

obtaining crude oil data on one or more representative crude oil samples produced from the shale-oil reservoir rock and on topped samples of that crude oil; and

interpreting the first and second petroleum data, the crude oil data, the topped oil data, and the first and second data to determine producible oil quantities for the shale-oil reservoir rock.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the core sample is obtained by crushing and homogenizing two or more samples of facies from the shale-oil reservoir rock.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining first data on the extracted core sample comprises performing an X-ray diffraction analysis of the extracted core sample, performing a programmed pyrolysis on the extracted core sample, performing a shale property analysis on the extracted core sample, and performing a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging analysis on the extracted core sample.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

extracting the twice-extracted core sample using a third solvent to form a thrice-extracted core sample and a third solvent-extracted petroleum;

drying the thrice-extracted core sample to evaporate the third solvent; and

obtaining third data on the thrice-extracted core sample,

wherein correlating the first and second data to determine producible oil quantities for the shale-oil reservoir rock comprises correlating the first, second, and third data to determine producible oil quantities for the shale-oil reservoir rock.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the weak solvent comprises cyclohexane, the strong solvent comprises toluene, and the third solvent comprises a chloroform methanol mixture.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the weak solvent comprises cyclohexane.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the strong solvent comprises toluene or a chloroform methanol mixture.

19. A method for analyzing the chemical properties of a shale-oil reservoir rock, comprising:

analyzing one or more native core samples to obtain a first set of data;

homogenizing the one or more native core samples to form a homogenized sample;

analyzing the homogenized sample to obtain a second set of data;

extracting the homogenized sample using a weak solvent to form an extracted sample and an extracted petroleum;

analyzing the extracted sample to obtain a third set of data;

analyzing the extracted petroleum to obtain a fourth set of data;

correlating the first, second, third, and fourth sets of data to determine producible oil quantities for the shale-oil reservoir rock.

20. A method for analyzing the chemical properties of a reservoir rock, comprising:

extracting a core sample of a reservoir rock using a first solvent to form an extracted core sample and an extracted petroleum;

drying the extracted core sample to evaporate the first solvent;

allowing the first solvent to evaporate from the extracted petroleum;

extracting the extracted core sample using a second solvent to form a twice-extracted core sample and a second solvent-extracted petroleum;

drying the twice-extracted core sample to evaporate the strong solvent;

allowing the second solvent to evaporate from the second solvent-extracted petroleum;

correlating data obtained with each act to determine oil quantities for the reservoir rock.