WELL LOG INTERPRETATION

Presented by: ADEMOLA SORUNGBE

October 22nd, 2019

PRESENTATION OUTLINE
▪ What is Well Log Interpretation?
▪ Historical Background
➢ Origin of the term “Petrophysics”
➢ Importance of Well Log Interpretation
▪ Well Log Interpretation
▪ Case Study 1
▪ Case Study 2
▪ Conclusion 2
WHAT IS WELL LOG
INTERPRETATION?

3
▪ Well log interpretation is the use of well log
data to estimate various reservoir properties

▪ Interpretation of well logs will reveal both

the mineralogical and proportion of solid
constituents of the rock (i.e. grains, matrix
and cement), and the nature and
proportions (porosity, saturations) of the
interstitial fluids (O. Serra, 1984)

▪ They are also key instruments in well

productivity assessment
4
 Producers Kizildere Oil Field, Denizli
Injectors
Province, Turkey

Source: A Numerical Model of the Kizildere Geothermal Field, Turkey

(S.K. Garg et. Al, 2015)

▪ Well log interpretation is primarily aimed at

quantitative characterization of subsurface
reservoirs 5
▪ Well log analysts are the
investigators

▪ Well logs are the evidence

6
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND OF
WELL LOG
INTERPRETATION
7
 The original geophysical
logging equipment used by
the Schlumberger brothers
in the late 1920's

Source: Schlumberger, 2000

▪ In 1927 the first electrical resistivity well log was acquired in France

▪ At this time well logs were only qualitative indicators of hydrocarbon presence
8
▪ Well log interpretation is as old as the
research of the “father of petrophysics” –
Gustavus Archie

▪ BS Mining Engineering (1931), Combined

MS in Mining Engineering and Geology
(1933)

▪ Joined SHELL (Kansas) in 1934

▪ His research focused on transforming the

then Schlumberger resistivity log to a
quantitative tool 9
▪ Young Archie was assigned the task of examining cuttings and electric
cores, before being transferred to the Texas Gulf area in 1938

▪ Archie undertook a systematic investigation of every existing Shell

Texas Gulf area electric log together with its companion core analysis,
mud log, and test data (E.C. Thomas, 2018)

▪ Archie’s work was aimed at solving one of the most serious problems
of the early 1940’s, that of obtaining porosity, permeability and
hydrocarbon saturation from electric log responses correlated and
calibrated to core measurements (E.C. Thomas, 2018)

10
 Archie’s Breakthrough
▪ He played the key role in identification of producible horizons at the
giant Elk City Field in Oklahoma (1947)

▪ An episode which dramatically demonstrated for the first time the role
that well log measurements could play in identifying pay zones
(www.wiki.seg.com)

11
 Archie’s Breakthrough
▪ SHELL was drilling a deep well (Walter 1) targeting the Springer sands
at 12000ft

▪ Cuttings and electric log indicated no hydrocarbon

▪ The shallower Granite Wash zone was cased and drillstem tests
showed no producible hydrocarbon in the deeper Springer sands

▪ Tulsa office requested permission from Houston to plug and

abandon, but met resistance from the then VP of Shell
12
 Archie’s Breakthrough
▪ Archie had been analyzing the electric logs at the Tulsa office where
he plotted the RT and SP logs, observing a consistent trend except for
one zone (i.e. the Granite Wash zone)

▪ He convinced the VP against the wish of his colleagues at Tulsa to

test the Granite Wash zone, arguing that light hydrocarbon may not
show noticeable fluorescence

▪ Archie was right, but he lost his hat; a small price to pay for
discovering the 110-million BOE Elk City Field, which later
supported a 20-rig drilling program (E.R. Shorey, Jr.,1992) 13
 Origin of the term “PETROPHYSICS”
▪ In September 1949, Gus presented before the Houston Geological
Society, and later published in the Bulletin of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists, the paper which forever married
geology and physics: “Introduction to Petrophysics of Reservoir
Rocks” (Archie, 1950)

▪ In this seminal work, he introduced the term petrophysics to express

the physics of rocks

▪ The word itself had been coined earlier in discussions about the
subject with Gus’ counterpart with SHELL, J.H.M.A. Thomeer
14
Well Log Interpretation: An interdisciplinary tool

RESERVOIR
CHARACTERIZATION

Geomechanics

Geology Geophysics

Petrophysics

Drilling Production
Engr. Engr.
Reservoir
Engr.

15
▪ Reservoir characterization is the process of preparing a quantitative
representation of a reservoir using data from a variety of sources
and disciplines (www.sciencedirect.com)

▪ It includes:
➢ Reservoir mapping (seismic and lithostratigraphic)
➢ Fluid typing/contact delineation
➢ Rock property determination (e.g. porosity, permeability, clay volume)
➢ Fluid property analysis (e.g. fluid viscosity, formation volume factor)
➢ Pressure estimation
➢ Etc.
16
▪ Well logs are also used in reservoir and well performance
monitoring

▪ Which includes:
➢ Identifying flow profiles
➢ Well diagnostics
➢ Assessing treatment effectiveness
➢ Time lapse assessment (contact movement, saturation change)
➢ Etc.

17
WELL LOG
INTERPRETATION

18
 Data Check

BASIC Load data Generate a summary report

WORK View/Edit Data Define log cutoffs

FLOW Fluid Typing Calculate Saturation

Calculate Volume of Shale Calculate Porosity

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 Data Check

▪ Review the logs available (soft and hardcopy). Soft copy logs are mainly
in .las and .ascii formats

▪ Look through well log header and take note of relevant information

▪ Digitize hardcopy logs in the event of missing digital logs

▪ Prepare log availability matrix table for all the wells to assess evaluability

20
Log and Data Availability table

21
 Data Import

▪ Digital logs are loaded

into the available
interpretation software
package e.g. Techlog, IP,
Geolog, PowerBench etc. Import
window

▪ Some softwares are now

integrated and can do Project
window
more than just basic well
log interpretation
Source: https://www.academia.edu : Schlumberger Techlog Manual
22
 Well Log Editing
▪ Before any log interpretation, ▪ Depth Shifting
detailed log QC should ▪ Removal of End Effects
always be done
▪ Rescaling
▪ The main purpose of well ▪ Splicing
log editing is to prepare the ▪ Fill Gaps
well data for interpretation
▪ Value Editing
▪ Patching

23
Depth Shifting
▪ It is the process of aligning a log to
a common depth with respect to a
reference log (usually GR or RES)

▪ 2 Methods of Depth Shifting

➢ Bulk depth shift
➢ Multiple tie line depth shift

▪ Core PHI and K are also shifted

where needed
Source: Well Log Data Processing by Shoaib Aamir Fahim 24
Removal of End Effect
▪ In some cases, the
logging tool records data
from the casing shoe or
spikes associated with
the first or last tool
reading

▪ These spikes are not

associated with lithology

Source: Well Log Data Processing by Shoaib Aamir Fahim 25

Removal of End Effect

False indication of
evaporite End Effects

26
Rescaling
▪ Allows for correction of improper calibration, missed scale changes
of digitized logs, neutron count conversion, linear to logarithmic
conversion, etc.

Patching
▪ The patch curves editing is used to remove unwanted data points
such as noise spikes, and to reshape curves

▪ Editing of sonic for cycle skipping and density for any borehole
washout
27
Splicing
▪ This is useful for merging curves from different logging runs into a
single composite curve

Fill Gaps
▪ Fill Gap is used to replace nulls with values interpolated between
valid data points

▪ Typically the gaps are not more than 2ft

28
 Fluid Typing

LIGHT
HYDROCARBON
EFFECT

GAS-OIL
CONTACT

OIL-WATER
CONTACT

30
Fluid distribution plots
▪ Fluid distribution stick
plots are diagrammatic
representations of the
lateral and vertical spread
of the fluids seen by each
well

▪ Fluid contacts are

extremely important tools
for contact analysis
31
Fluid distribution plots
▪ Stick plots of pre-production wells are used in selecting contacts for
HIIP volumetric in each reservoir

▪ Used by production technologists when choosing re-perforation

opportunities in collaboration with RST logs

▪ A plot of cumulative production versus contacts is sometimes used

to predict contact movement with production

32
ROCK
PROPERTY
ESTIMATION

33
 Shale Volume Estimation

What are Shales?

34
 ▪ Shales are ROCKS!
What are Shales?

Rock classification on the basis of particle size

35
 ▪ Shales are ROCKS!
What are Shales?
▪ 70% clay sized particles and 30% silt sized particles
➢ Clay particles – Clay minerals and micas
➢ Silt particles – Quartz and feldspars

Rock classification on the basis of particle size

36
Why are we
interested in Shales?

38
Why are we
interested in Shales?
▪ Our interest in shales is for the most part indirect

39
Why are we
interested in Shales?
▪ Our interest in shales is for the most part indirect

▪ The effect of clay minerals on log readings and pore interconnectivity

is our main interest

40
Why are we
interested in Shales?
▪ Our interest in shales is for the most part indirect

▪ The effect of clay minerals on log readings and pore interconnectivity

is our main interest

▪ Shale beds are also important to us in net sand count

41
What are we really
estimating? Shale Volume
or Clay Volume?

42
What are we really ▪ GR logs respond to clays

estimating? Shale Volume

or Clay Volume?

43
What are we really ▪ GR logs respond to clays

estimating? Shale Volume ▪ An increase in Density and

or Clay Volume? Neutron typically means an
increase in clay content

44
What are we really ▪ GR logs respond to clays

estimating? Shale Volume ▪ An increase in Density and

or Clay Volume? Neutron typically means an
increase in clay content

▪ Silt is fine grained QUARTZ and variations in log measurements

is caused by the occurrence of clay minerals and micas

45
 Quartz grain

Shale/Clay
Pore filling
Occurrence kaolinite booklet

Clay laminae

Filamentous illite

Pore filling
Sources: www.spec2000.net Pore lining
www.webmineral.com Pore bridging 46
Computation (Neutron-Density)

Matrix
Parameter

Shale
Parameter

49
Computation (GR)

Assumed 0% shale
parameter GRclean

Assumed 100% shale

parameter GRsh

50
 Porosity Estimation
▪ Total Porosity (PHIT): Ratio of pore volume to bulk volume
i.e. Volume occupied by Free Fluid + Clay bound water + Capillary Bound
Water/Irreducible Water + Isolated pore fluids + micro-porosities in organic
matter

▪ Effective Porosity (PHIE): Portion of the total porosity available for

fluid flow

▪ Secondary Porosity: Porosities that developed after burial and

compaction e.g. fractures, vugs, etc.

51
What exactly is
Total and Effective
Porosity?

52
What exactly
is Total and
Effective
Porosity?

53
What exactly
is Total and
Effective
Porosity?
Source: Development in Petroleum
Science Vol. 65: Physical Properties of
Rocks

Source: www.epgeology.com
54
What exactly
is Total and
Effective
Porosity?

Source: Crain’s Petrophysics www.spec2000.net

55
 ▪ Total and Effective porosity varies with the
What exactly “measuring instrument”
is Total and
▪ PHIT from Neutron differs from that from
Effective density log
Porosity?
▪ PHIT measurements from core require special
cleaning and drying techniques to avoid the
collapse of the clay crystals

▪ Proper core measurements is the ground truth,

but with minimal depth coverage 56
 ▪ There is no final position on what constitutes
What exactly effective porosity
is Total and
▪ This depends once again on the method of
Effective measurement
Porosity?
▪ But, if residual hydrocarbon forms part of the
effective porosity, then Swir/Capillary bound
water should

57
Computation (Density)
▪ Of all the basic logs, density log is the most accurate in estimating total
porosity

▪ Secondary porosity can be estimated by subtracting sonic porosity from

density porosity
PHIE = PHIT * (1 – VSH)

PHIE = PHIT – VSH/PHITsh

PHIE = PHIT – VCL/PHITcl

i.e. PHIT - CBW

58
Computation (Sonic)

59
 Permeability Prediction
▪ Permeability is a measure of a rocks’ ability to transmit fluid/gas

▪ It is dependent on a rock’s effective porosity and also on 2 facies

dependent variables (pore throat size and distribution)

▪ There are several porosity dependent empirical models that attempt

to predict permeability e.g. Coates, Timur, Wyllie and Rose, Morris-
Briggs, etc.

▪ These models do not account for the effect of pore throat sizes and
distribution 60
Log-based Permeability

▪ Results from these models can be calibrated to accurate

measurements from core or well test
61
Facies-based Permeability (FZI)
▪ Proposed by Amaefule et al (1993). Core and Log data identify flow
units and predict permeability in uncored intervals

▪ FZI values determined from core analysis data (poro, perm) is

used to identify appropriate FZI values for each facies class
▪ FZI values are assigned to each defined facies class along the well

62
Facies-based Permeability (FZI)

63
Facies-based Permeability (Poro-Perm)

64
 Water Saturation Estimation
Archie’s Equation Where:

Rw = water resistivity

Rt = true resistivity deep

 = porosity

m = cementation exponent

Rw – Pickett plot or produced water analysis n = cementation exponent

m, n – Core analysis report or empirical relationships

65
Shaly Sand Empirical Models

▪ At the start few empirical

equations were developed

▪ These applied to specific regions

▪ They used effective porosity (φe)

▪ They used parameters for clay,

such as Vcl and Rcl

66
Shaly Sand Excess Conductivity Models
▪ Three equations were
developed independently by
Shell and Schlumberger to
account for the conductivity
of the shale

▪ These equations are based

on theory and hence have
Source: http://www.nexttraining.net more universal applications

67
 Petrophysical Property Summation
Cutoff Sensitivity Analysis

68
Cutoff Logplot

69
Summary Table

70
CASE STUDY 1

71
 Analyzing Well Logs From the Montoya Lime Using a New Carbonate
Well Log Interpretation Procedure by Walsh, Brown, and Asquith

▪ In this study, they tried to account for the effect on pore type
(intercrystalline, bimodal, fracture, or vug) on cementation factor (m)

▪ Crossplots of well logs were used to determine the dominant porosity

types along a reservoir of interest (60ft low porosity Montoya Lime)

▪ The type of porosity determined their choice of variable m equation

that was used for Sw calculation

▪ @m=2 >>SwAR 80-100%

72
Variable “m” Empirical Relationships

Intergranular/intercrystalline porosity

Vugs

Fractures

Bimodal porosity
73
Pore Type Crossplots
PHIT_S vs PHIT_D ▪ Depending on where the points cluster, each
interval analyzed can be classified on the
PHIT_Rs vs PHIT_D basis on its predominant porosity type

M vs N ▪ The final choice is based on results from all

the plots
Rs/Rz vs Rt/Rw
▪ The authors noted that in carbonates, there is
SW_AR vs SW_Ratio a tendency for pore type to change vertically
along the same reservoir

74
Montoya Lime Example
▪ Lithology: Limestone (confirmed by N/D and M-N crossplot)

▪ Porosity: 2 to 4% (from N/D)

▪ SwT: 80 – 100% (assuming constant m value of 2)

▪ Pore Type: Intercrystalline (only SWT_arch vs SWT_ratio indicated

fracture porosity)

▪ SwT: 40 – 65% (using pore type dependent variable m). A productive

zone would have been by-passed
75
CASE STUDY 2

76
Hydrocarbon Effect Correction on Porosity Calculation from Density
Neutron Logs using Volume of Shale in Niger Delta by Anyaehie and
Olanrewaju (SPDC Nigeria)

▪ The authors developed a method for the estimation of porosity that

does not depend on fluid density

▪ Fluid density depends on fluid composition, mud property, and

invasion profile

▪ The proposed method is a modification of the well known 1/3, 2/3

method

77
Background
▪ In a clean water bearing zone, NPHI should read same as PHI_D
since NPHI is calibrated to water

▪ In a clean hydrocarbon bearing interval, the fluid alone is responsible

for a deviation from the above scenario

▪ This deviation from norm does not always occur in the same
proportion; especially in light hydrocarbon sands

▪ Therefore, it is possible to correct for this effect if the right

proportion can be established
78
 ▪ The authors tested
this “proportion
idea” in an oil
bearing zone with
core porosity for
reference

PHIToil = 0.5(0.16) + 0.5(0.29)

By combining the NPHI and
DPHI at a 50:50 proportion,
they arrived at the same average
porosity value of the core
acquired within this interval 80
▪ 50:50 proportion was observed to work fine for clean oil zones

▪ However, the proportion had to be adjusted for the light

hydrocarbon zones due to the variability in the effect of gas/light oil
on the N/D logs compared to oil

PHITcorr = 0.5((PHIT_D)(1+VSH)+NPHI(1-VSH)) - For Oil Zones

PHITcorr = 1/3((PHIT_D)(2+VSH)+NPHI(1-VSH)) – For Gas Zones

▪ The 1/3:2/3 method does not give good results in shaly zones,
therefore the authors introduced the shale correction factor 81
Comparison of proposed method with existing methods

Proposed method giving the best

result

82
CONCLUSION

83
In Conclusion
▪ Well log interpretation is the basis of any formation evaluation and
reservoir characterization exercise

▪ The use of well logs as an interpretation tool cuts across several

disciplines

▪ A good understanding of the operating principles of well logging

tools and the geologic interpretation of well logs is important for
proper well log interpretation

84
References
1. Development in Petroleum Science 15A: Fundamentals of well logging interpretation by O.
Serra 1984
2. SPWLA Today Newsletter. Issue 4. Vol. 1. September 2018
3. Enhanced Reservoir Description: Using Core and Log Data to Identify Hydraulic (Flow) Units
and Predict Permeability in Uncored Intervals/Wells
4. www.wiki.seg.com
5. https://www.academia.edu : Schlumberger Techlog Manual
6. Well Log Data Processing by Shoaib Aamir Fahim
7. Pettijohn, F.J. (1975) Sedimentary Rocks. 2nd Edition, Harper and Row Publishers, New York,
628 p.
8. http://www.nexttraining.net
9. Analyzing Well Logs From the Montoya Lime Using a New Carbonate Well Log Interpretation
Procedure by J.W. Walsh and S.L. Brown, The Logic Group, and G.B. Asquith, Texas Tech U.
(1994)
10. Hydrocarbon Effect Correction on Porosity Calculation from Density Neutron Logs using
Volume of Shale in Niger Delta by Anyaehie and Olanrewaju (SPDC Nigeria) (2010) 85
86