Petrophysics Across the Petroleum

Industry from a Core to a CEO

Australian Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference

23 February 2017
Andrew Buffin
 What is Petrophysics ?

• Wikipedia: Petrophysics from the Greek

πέτρα (petra) ‘rock’

φύσις (physis) ‘nature’

• The study of physical and chemical rock

properties and their interactions with
fluids

• The description of oil and/or gas

distributions and production flow
capacity of reservoirs, from
interpretations of pore systems and fluid
interactions using all available downhole
data.
 A Brief History of Petrophysics
Shell (Interpreted Log Data – Petrophysics)
• Archie, G.E. (1942)
• An empirical quantitative relationship between porosity,
electrical conductivity, and brine saturation of rocks.
• Laid the foundation for modern well log interpretation
• Pickett Plot – A graphical representation of Archie Equation

Service companies (Acquired Log Data)

• Schlumberger founded in 1926 by brothers Conrad and
Marcel Schlumberger and recorded the first-ever electrical
resistivity well log in 1927
• Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Weatherford

• MH Waxman- LJM Smits (1968)

• An equation that relates the electrical conductivity of a
water-saturated shaly sand
• Typical logging combo:
• 1936/1950s: Spontaneous Potential, Resistivity.
• 1950s/60s: Gamma Ray (GR), Neutron, Microlog
• 1970s/80s: Sonic, Density, Fluid sampling, Digital data. Data
transmission started
• 1990-Today: Logging While Drilling, Down-hole fluid typing,
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Array and Image Data,
Data transmission commonplace
 The Petrophysicists Contribution

• More of the parameters used in the calculation of STOIIP are provided by

Petrophysics than any other discipline!
Petrophysicist

Geophysicist

N 1
STOIIP  GRV     (1  S w ) 
G B0

Where, STOIIP = Stock tank oil initially in place

GRV = Gross rock volume
Net = Net Reservoir
Gross = Gross Reservoir
Ø = Porosity
Sw = Water Saturation Reservoir
B0 = Formation Volume Factor Engineer

Geologist

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 The Basic Role of Petrophysics

• Lithology • Permeability derived empirically

• Volume of Shale (Vsh) using relationships of log data
• Depth and depth of formations with core permeability.
• Porosity • Environment of Deposition
• Fluid phase, gas, oil, water
• Fluid saturations Sw, So, Sg
• Moveable Hydrocarbons
• Net Sand / Net Pay
• Subsurface Pressures
• Temperature
• Velocity/Time
• Seismic responses
• Correlation with other wells
 The Thin Bed Problem and Solution
• Heterogeneity is common in the rock
column
• In rock beds less than 2 feet thick, log
resolution is impacted by being strongly
influenced by adjacent beds.
• Thinly laminated sand-shale sequences can
have clean sands, which are not resolved
• Over thin–bedded and shale intervals,
horizontal resistivity is heavily biased GR Res
toward low–resistivity shale and is less
sensitive to the hydrocarbon-bearing
sandstone resistivity
• Supressed resistivity data and ‘high’ shale
volume result in ‘missed’ hydrocarbons
• An accurate evaluation of low-resistivity pay
in thinly bedded or laminated reservoirs,
requires an additional vertical resistivity GR Rh Rv
measurement
• This provides much better sensitivity to the
presence of hydrocarbons.
• The resistivity is measured in three
dimensions and calculates both vertical and
horizontal resistivity (Rv and Rh,
respectively) from direct induction
• This leads to reliable identification and
accurate petrophysical evaluation of low-
resistivity pay by determining the Rv, Rh
sand fraction and porosity
 The Complex Lithology Problem and Solution

Pyritic Sand:
• High PEF
• High Density
• High Grain Density
• Suppressed Resistivity
Results in:
• If D-N log used a high Vsh
• Low porosity
• High Water Saturation
• Potentially “Missed” pay

Probabilistic petrophysics:
• Run in complex reservoirs with a variable and mixed mineralogy
• Used to solve for multiple clay minerals within the reservoir
• To ‘constrain’ the result to a specific outcome, this may be determined from
petrology studies, core analysis, XRD etc.
• Solves for volumetric fractions and defines bulk mineralogy, grain matrix density,
porosity and fluid saturations
• There is not one unique solution
 Where (do) the Petrophysicists sit (?)

Production Geophysics Geologist

Technologists • Rock Physics • Static model input
• Porosity & • Gassmann Substitution • Porosity &
Permeability Permeability
• Fluid Analysis • Saturation Height
• Test depths • Net Sand & Pay
• Perforation Depths • Shale volume
Petrophysicist • Fluid contacts

Drilling Geomechanics
• Pore Pressure • Core Analysis
• Bit Selection • Sonic / Density
• Lithology • Rock Strength

Reservoir Engineer Commercial (Reserves)

• Dynamic model input Service Providers • Porosity
• Relative Permeability • Data, data and • Water Saturation
• Saturation Height • More Data • Net Pay

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 Petrophysics from a Core to a CEO

A Core

An Ex-CEO
 Petrophysics – State of the Art

The highest level of general development, as of a device,

technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time

• Petrophysical data is used across all the subsurface disciplines

– how it’s used is important.
• Are you answering the right questions?
• Design your evaluation programme to answer the subsurface
challenges
• Data QC & QA with appropriate data editing and corrections
• Petrophysical data acquired to identify ‘hidden reserves’ or
‘missed pay’
• Petrophysical techniques and tools developed with demand
from the industry
 Petrophysics – The Future

• Technology changes in the • Artificial Intelligence?

next few years
• Down hole reservoir
engineering laboratory
• Down hole core laboratory
• Nano-technology
• Robotics on fully automated
oil and gas fields
• Direct measurement of
permeability “AI allows a computer to make all
the mistakes that humans make –
• 4 D real time-reservoir only faster”
monitoring
• Data integration and Attributed to E. R. (Ross) Crain, a retired Consulting
interpretation Petrophysicist taken from his web site: Crain's
Petrophysical Handbook
Thank you
andrew.buffin@resevalconsulting.com