C E M E N T I N G T E C H N O L O G Y
FOAMED-CEMENT EVALUATION WITH
CONVENTIONAL CEMENT LOGS AND
IMPROVED INTERPRETATION METHODS
Methods used to evaluate conventional
cements with logging data may not yield valid
results for foamed cements. Logging tools
commonly used in cement evaluation are tra-
ditional cement-bond-log (CBL) tools and
modern ultrasonic scanning tools. CBL tools
provide waveform images and acoustic ampli-
tudes that describe cement-to-pipe and
cement-to-formation bonding. Ultrasonic
scanning tools provide circumferential images
and detailed information about the cement-
to-pipe bond. The major problem in evaluat-
ing foamed cements is that their impedance
values can be less than those of annular fluids,
such as mud or water. Standard interpretation
of ultrasonic images and data for foamed
cement may provide incorrect diagnosis of
the cement bond and could lead to unneces-
sary remedial cementing. A new interpreta-
tion method expands and improves methods
for foamed-cement evaluation with common
cement-evaluation tools. This method uses
ultrasonic scanning data to provide detailed
information about the cement-to-pipe bond
and allows foamed-cement to be distin-
guished from mud or spacer fluid behind cas-
ing. Cement-slurry weight and composition
do not affect this technique, and the tech-
nique does not introduce additional logging
or rig expenses because it does not require
additional logging tools or passes.
FOAMED CEMENT
Foamed cement was developed in the late
1970s to provide a low-density, 4- to
9-lbm/gal cement with good compressive-
strength development. A competent cement
sheath minimizes casing buckling, parting,
This article is a synopsis of paper SPE
55649, Assessment of Foamed-
Cement Slurries Using Conventional
Cement-Evaluation Logs and Improved
Interpretation Methods, by Gary J.
Frisch, SPE, William L. Graham, SPE,
and James Griffith, SPE, Halliburton
Energy Services, originally presented
at the 1999 SPE Rocky Mountain
Regional Meeting, Gillette, Wyoming,
1518 May.
AUGUST 1999
and elongation caused by stress. Foamed
cement develops higher dynamic-flow shear
stress than conventional cements, which
increases its displacement capabilities.
Foamed cement consists of cement slurry and
nitrogen gas. Proper selection of gas content
allows the foamed-slurry pressure gradient to
be between the fracture- and pore-pressure
gradients to prevent fluid loss and encroach-
ment. Foamed cement controls gas migration
better than any other type of cement because
the nitrogen continues to expand while
cement volume decreases, allowing slurry
pressure to remain almost constant during the
cement transition period. Foamed, 20- to 35-
quality, Class-H cement remains more ductile
than other cements. This permits the casing
sheath to yield when well casing expands.
CBL
In conventional CBL tools, a transmitter is
pulsed to produce an omnidirectional
acoustic signal that travels to a set of
receivers along various paths through the
borehole fluid, pipe, cement, and forma-
tion. The logging system records the
received waveforms and displays them on
the log along with a pipe-amplitude curve.
CBL interpretation uses these two measure-
ments to determine cement-to-pipe and
cement-to-formation bonds.
The pipe-amplitude curve represents the
amplitude of the acoustic signal that has trav-
eled through pipe but not through cement
and formation. The amplitude reading for
foamed cement that is well bonded to the cas-
ing is the same as a fair-to-poor cement-to-
pipe bond of conventional cements because
foamed cements have a reduced damping
effect. Classic interpretation of the waveform
display is that straight traces indicate no
cement while any variation in the waveforms
indicates some cement is present. Waveform
displays also are affected by foamed cements.
ULTRA SONIC TOOLS
Ultrasonic tools provide the best measure-
ment of foamed-cement placement and
bonding. These tools provide an indication
of cement-to-casing bonding. Instead of a
separate source and receiver, the ultrasonic
source and receiver are packaged together as
a transducer. When a signal emitted by the
transducer encounters an acoustic interface,
some signal energy is reflected at the inter-
face and some is transmitted across the
interface. The fractional amounts of reflect-
ed and transmitted energy depend on the
interface-materials acoustic impedances.
Early ultrasonic tools consisted of eight
ultrasonic transducers in a helical array.
Each transducer was calibrated to a known
value so minor impedance changes could
be detected.The impedance calculated from
each transducer was plotted and an image
generated from the eight scans.
New ultrasonic tools use a single, rotating
ultrasonic transducer to produce high-reso-
lution, circumferential data. Data for both
cement and casing evaluation are obtained
in the same pass. Rotating transducers pro-
vide 36 to 200 measurements per depth sam-
ple. Depth-sample rates range from 2 to 12
samples/ft. Results are presented in a color-
coded image based on gas, water, and
cement impedances instead of a single curve.
FOAMED -CEMENT EVALUATION
Because foamed cements affect both the
amplitude and waveform of CBLs, the analy-
sis procedure used for conventional
cements is invalid for foamed cements.
Because foamed-cement impedance can be
lower than water, drilling mud, or spacer
fluid, foamed-cement-evaluation tech-
niques originally developed for multitrans-
ducer ultrasonic tools have been expanded
and improved for foamed-cement evalua-
tion with the new ultrasonic scanning tools.
Multitransducer Evaluation. A technique
to distinguish foamed cement from fluid
relies on a statistical-variation process to
distinguish solid crystalline structures from
fluids even when both have the same
impedance. Cement, with a mixture of
solids and fluids, exhibits high impedance-
measurement variations. A consistent
phase, such as water, gas, or drilling mud,
exhibits lower computed impedance varia-
87
 C E M E N T I N G
Fig. 1Statistical-variation-process presentation for a 10-
lbm/gal slurry.
tions. Analysis of vertical rate of impedance
change permits easy determination of
whether foamed cement or fluid is present.
Single-Transducer Evaluation. Because
the scanning tool consists of only one trans-
ducer, normalization required for a multi-
transducer tool is not necessary. Through
the statistical-variation process, the imped-
ance activity level is calculated directly as an
impedance derivative, which allows detec-
tion of minor changes in cement or fluid
composition and aids foamed-cement inter-
pretation. A resulting derivative image is
used to distinguish cements from fluids.
Example logs in the full-length paper pre-
sent a foam image, a new image produced
from the mathematical sum of the raw
impedance image and the derivative image.
IMAGE SEGMENTATION
Scanning-tool-log results normally are pre-
sented in an image format because of large
amounts of recorded data. Image color-cod-
ing is not of sufficient resolution to distin-
guish fluids from foamed cements. This
limitation can be overcome by use of sever-
al curves to present data from the image.
For a given sample, the 100 data points
on the impedance image are separated into
nine segments with 12 points in the first
segment and 11 points in each of the other
eight segments. The curve designation indi-
cates which scan point generated the curve
and in which segment the scan point
resides. Figures in the full-length paper
88
T E C H N O L O G Y
Fig. 2Segmented-curve presentation for a 10-lbm/gal slurry.
show image-segmentation plots for both
free-pipe and bonded-pipe sections.
AVERAGE SEGMENTATION
Small channels are hard to detect when mul-
tiple curves are plotted on the same scale in
the same track. To enhance visual interpreta-
tion, minimum and average impedances are
calculated and plotted. The full-length paper
shows average segmentation plots for both
free-pipe and bonded-pipe sections.
FOAM PRESENTATION
Additional displays based on statistical-vari-
ation processing can be used to help deter-
mine foamed-cement presence. In a statisti-
cal-variation-process presentation, Track 1
consists of gamma and average-amplitude
curves, Track 2 consists of bond-index
curves from the scanning tool and ampli-
tude and amplified-amplitude curves from
the CBL tool, Track 3 contains the standard
CBL waveform display, Track 4 contains the
standard raw impedance image, Track 5
contains the statistical-variation-derivative
image, and Track 6 shows the foam image.
LIGHTWEIGHT CEMENT
Figs. 1 and 2 show statistical-variation-pro-
cessing and segmented-curve presentations
for an interval cemented with a 10-lbm/gal
foamed cement. If only the CBL and impe-
dance information from Fig. 1 were used to
evaluate the interval, channels and poor bond
would be suspected and remedial cementing
recommended. Over the upper half of the
interval where apparent channels are most
prominent, amplitude ranges from 30 to 40,
normally indicating poor bond. Pipe arrivals
(dark, straight traces) appear on the CBL
waveform over the upper half of the interval,
indicating poor cement-to-pipe bond. The
impedance image shows a channel on the
high side of the hole, starting at the top of the
log. The lower half of the CBL waveform indi-
cates good cement-to-formation bond.
The segmented-curve presentation
shown in Fig. 2 indicates high activity lev-
els over the entire interval in all segments.
Activity level is low in segment D.
Impedance in this low-activity area is
greater than 3, indicating cement is present.
CONCLUSIONS
Traditional cement-evaluation techniques
have several shortcomings when applied to
foamed cements. A statistical-variation
process, new bond-index curves, and spe-
cial log presentations have been developed
to improve foamed-cement evaluation.
These new evaluation procedures will
reduce unnecessary remedial-cementing
costs. The new evaluation technique has
been applied successfully to data through-
out the world.
Please read the full-length paper for
additional detail, illustrations, and ref-
erences. The paper from which the
synopsis has been taken has not been
peer reviewed.
AUGUST 1999