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Rock Typing Classification and Hydraulic Flow Units Definition of One of the
Most Prolific Carbonate Reservoir in the Onshore Abu Dhabi
N. F. Alhashmi, K. Torres, M. Faisal, V. Segura Cornejo, B. P. Bethapudi, S. Mansur, and A. S. Al-Rawahi, Abu
Dhabi Co For Onshore Petroleum Operations Ltd
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Dubai, UAE, 26-28 September 2016.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Defining the flow and distribution of fluids in porous media has always been of key importance in modeling
and predicting the performance of oil and gas reservoirs. Based upon the rock-fluid interactions, reservoir
rocks have to be classified into separate flow units called rock types. This task is particularly complex in
carbonates as they are generally impacted by diagenesis and cannot be represented by a single porosity
permeability relationship per litho-facie.
Establishing accurate rock types in carbonates, therefore, requires integration of various petrophysical
data with the available rock, fluid and geological information. Various techniques have evolved in the
industry for formulating rock-types (Pittman, RQI, FZI, Lucia, Winland, etc.), each technique offering its
benefit depending on the nature and variety of data available.
This paper presents a newly adopted workflow to formulate an RRT definition for a carbonate reservoir by
integrating data from MICP, CCA, petrophysical logs and lithofacies information. The workflow involves
associating the pore throat size distribution evaluated using MICP data with the measured porosity and
permeability values utilizing the Winland R35 equation. Hydraulic flow units are identified using the
Stratigraphic Lorenz Plot, based on the change of flow and storage capacity slopes. Pc, PTR, Phi and K
discriminators were established and were used to as cut-offs for defining intervals representing good and
poor facies.
The new methodology helped to achieve a very good match (>80%) of water saturation from the
initialized model with the log derived saturations in all wells drilled thus far in Reservoir-A. The
methodology further helped optimize the number of effective rock types required to effectively delineate
the field dynamic characteristics, helping reduce run time and anticipated convergence issues.
Introduction
The reservoir system needs to be subdivided into flow units to understand the reservoir rock-fluid interaction
and to accurately predict the reservoir performance. In most cases, rock typing depends on availability of
special core analysis (SCAL), core facies analysis and Mercury Injection Capillary Pressure (MICP) data.
The definition of rock types involves clustering the rock depicting similar flow characteristics, rock fluid
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behavior, capillary pressure curves, K & relationship, and distinguished facies groups. When properly
applied, the process can help better predict permeability for non-cored wells and ultimately help achieve
a better saturation match.
Winland Method
An empirical equation relating permeability, porosity, and a capillary pressure parameter is referred to as
Winland's equation. Based on laboratory measurements on 312 samples, Winland's regression equation is:
(1)
where:
r35 is the pore throat radius at 35% mercury saturation
k is air permeability
is porosity in percent
Pittman Method
Pittman also established regression equations for pore aperture sizes ranging from 10% to 75% mercury
saturation. His expressions have been rearranged and displayed in below table to show the exponents of
r and required to predict k. (Because r was used as the dependent variable in Pittman's regressions, the
coefficients in table below differ somewhat from what would be obtained if k were the dependent variable;
however the changes would not invalidate the point of this discussion.) Note that, with increasing mercury
saturation:
SPE-181629-MS 3
r exponent decreases
exponent increases
That is, the porosity term contributes relatively less to k than does r for mercury saturation values <35%.
In fact, Pittman noted that the porosity term was statistically insignificant for r10 through r35.
Depositional Environment
X-Field is found to have two different depositional environments, Shelf and shelf Embayment. These two
environments are separated by Shelf- shelf Embayment Boundary. Reservoir rock quality wise, the quality
of the rocks is degrading from the north (Shelf environment) being the best to the south (shelf Embayment
environment) being the worst. Shelf environment is characterized by rudist-rich rudstone to boundstone and
floatstone, however, shelf Embayment environment is mainly characterized by skeletal wack to mudstone.
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The vast variation of lithofacies reflects the complex depositional setting and the sub environment that
eventuated during depositional time and indicates the heterogeneity of A-Formation.
Workflow
To enhance the definition of the RRT, a comprehensive workflow was adopted as following:
The first step was gathering and quality control of lab measurements data. This essential step was
conducted with caution aiming for precise input data. MICP derived properties measurement was compared
SPE-181629-MS 5
with RCA derived properties in order to capture any outliner points. Cross-plots of micp vs rca, Kmicp
vs Krca, Entry pressure vs Kmicp, and Kkling vs Kswanson can be seen in the figure below (Figure 1).
Figure 1Quality control of lab measurement data using cross plots of well X-1.
Onother essential quality check to check the representatively of the sample is the relationship between
parent and chip samples (figure 2). 398 out of 530 samples were included after applying a 2% porosity cut-
off, while the rest were addressed as outliers due to rock heterogeneity.
Different petrophysical Rock Type methods and technique were tested prior to proceeding with the
Rock Typing clustering. Three equations that calculate the radius @35 Saturation were implemented to the
data; Winland 35, Pittman R35, and Flow Zone Indicator FQI. All of them were plotted against laboratory
measured R35 giving the following relationships (Figure 3). It worth to mention that using Winland equation
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and by incorporating 379 samples resulted in a good relationship of 0.936 capturing large and small radiuses.
Table 2 summarizes the results.
PTR Cut-off definition stage came next and 6 Cut-offs were defined according to formation Permeability
and porosity variation. The grouping criteria were defined, so as to differentiate between the high
permeability samples and the dense ones. Figure 3 shows CPOR vs CKH with the PTR cut-off. Resulting
cut-offs are stated below:
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Figure 6Well section of well X-7-V shows the match between RCA data R35 (black) and MICP R35 (red points).
Figure 7Stratigraphic Lorenz plot of well X-1. A good correlation was observed, flow
unit with big pore throat size are likely to have good flow capacity / good rock quality.
As can be seen in Figure 7 some correlation between pore throat sizes R35 with flow capacity (flow
units are color coded based on Winland classification). The interval where a sharp change is observed on
the cumulative normalized flow capacity (Cum Kh Norm) corresponds to a high pore throat size (R35)
SPE-181629-MS 9
interval. As example, in flow unit 9, the R35 shows pore throat size is > 6.5 microns and shows a sharp
cumulative normalized flow capacity indicating a good rock quality. In contrast, flow unit 10 and flow unit
1, which have R35 <1 micron, show a stable cumulative normalized flow capacity. Hence, intervals where
good facies is expected can easily be assessed as well as the ability to evaluate facies characteristic in term
of flow capacity and storage capacity.
Evaluation of Facies and rock quality based on pore throat radius size
Texture Facies vs. Rock Quality. The task of identifying a representative rock types especially in carbonate
reservoirs is difficult as the carbonate rocks normally do not represent a single porosity permeability
relationship per Litho-facies (Figure 8). However, after it got reassessed using pore throat, the grouping is
no longer impossible (Figure 9).
Histograms of frequency for lithofacies is used to show relation between rock qualities with texture facies
and the number of appearance of certain texture facies in different rock type or rock quality can be seen
in below example (Figure 10). Each bar of histogram represent the number of appearance of certain facies
in one well. The black line is cumulative total sample which corresponds to total depth of A- formation
in each well.
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Figure 11Capillary pressure vs mercury saturation plot before and after color coded by RRT cut-offs.
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Figure 12PSD vs PTR plot before and after color coded by RRT cut-offs.
Good rock types are laid down under the Macro porous zone and vice versa.
Finally, based on the flow units distribution, the below Table 3 summarizes the keys findings when
characterizing the Rock Types.
Table 3PSD vs PTR plot before and after color coded by RRT cut-offs. Good
rock types are lying down under the Macro porous zone and vice versa.
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Where:
Pcres = capillary pressure at reservoir conditions
Pclab = capillary pressure at laboratory conditions
(Cos) res = interfacial tension multiplied by cosine angle at reservoir conditions (oil-water, oil-gas)
Secondly, height above free water level is calculated using the following equation:
Thirdly, initial water saturation, Swi was estimated for each core sample against the maximum possible
transition zone in each well
Fourthly, normalized water saturation, Sw* is calculated using the below equation:
Sixthly, J vs. Sw, J vs. Sw* equations are generated for each rock type defined by Petrophysicist and also
for low and high cases. Charts for good and bad rock types are given below:
Figure 12Pc, J-function, PTR curves for RRT1 Good Rock Type
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Figure 13Pc, J-function, PTR curves for RRT2 - Good Rock Type
Figure 13Pc, J-function, PTR curves for RRT3 - Good Rock Type
Figure 14Pc, J-function, PTR curves for RRT9 - Bad Rock Type.
Conclusions
1. Reservoir Rock Typing study for A Reservoir in X field was conducted by following and integrated
Workflow based on: MICP, RCA, lithofacies, and logs data.
2. Three petrophysical Rock Type techniques were tested prior to proceed with the Rock Typing
clustering: Winland 35, Pittman R35, and Flow Zone Indicator FQI.
3. Winland 35 methods provide a good relationship with laboratory R35 with a correlation of 0.936
using 379 samples.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the senior management of ADNOC and ADCO-Opco for the permission
to publish this work.
Nomenclature
CCA : Conventional Core Analysis
FZI : Flow Zone Indicator
MICP : Mercury Injection Capillary Pressure
Pc : Capillary pressure
PTR : Pore Throat Radius
RQI : Reservoir Quality Index
RRT : Reservoir Rock-Types
SCAL : Special Core Analysis
Sw : Water saturation
K : Permeability
: Porosity
References
Corbett, P. Petroleum Geoengineering: Integration of Static and Dynamic Models. SEG and EAGE Distinguished
Instructor Short Course 2009.
Tucker, M.E., (2001) Sedimentary Petrology. 3rd edn. Blackwell Science, 262 p.
Lucia F. J. (1995): Rock-fabric / Petrophysical classification of carbonate pore space for reservoir characterization. AAPG
Bull., v. 79, n9, 12751300.
Leverett MC (1941): Capillary pressure Behaviour of Porous Solids. AIME, vol. 142, 151169.