Petrophysical Interpretation

In the oil industry, after completing drilling of a well we always look for some basic information: Is there any oil or gas? If yes, how much oil is there? A geoscientist needs to know even more: what is the nature of reservoir - carbonate or clastic, what is the nature of porosity- intergranular, fractured, or vuggy? What is the fluid characteristics and fluid association etc. To answer these questions, we require Petrophysical Interpretation. In other words, petrophysics is the study of physical and chemical properties of rock and the fluid that saturates the pore space. It utilizes the concepts of both geology and geophysics.

As we know, wireline logging is carried out after drilling of the well. Logging is a continuous measurement of certain physical properties of rock formation encountered in the well versus depth. The physical properties that are commonly recorded in a well are the natural radioactivity of the formation, spontaneous potential current, electrical conductivity of the formation, porosity (neutron based technique which actually measure the hydrogen index) formation density (from measurement of electron density using principle of Compton scattering) and compressional wave velocity variation. With these information combined with basic knowledge of geology and geophysics, a petrophysicist tries to answer (interpret !!) the basic question that we discussed in the beginning. A petrophysical interpretation may be a) Quick Look - where a rough assumption of porosity, permeability, fluid present in the pores is made by looking at collective log response or a b) Detailed Petrophysical Interpretation - where a model of the subsurface rock body/formation is generated using suitable mathematical algorithm and some empirically determined equations and the model gives the required information in quantitative terms. The outcome of petrophysical interpretation is used for following: - Identification of zone for testing and production. - Reserve estimation: as we know, Reserve = Rock volume X Porosity X Oil Saturation - Development geology and Reservoir engineering study - to model rock property over an area/structure.

In petrophysical modeling, rock properties like porosity, permeability etc are calculated indirectly based on log measurements of physical properties of rocks. Therefore, it is always necessary to validate the these parameters with laboratory measurements of rock property on conventional cores recovered from same formation. In the recent past, there have been significant development in wireline logging technology as well as in petrophysics. Some of new technology that helps in better evaluation of the reservoir are Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Technology which measures free and bound fluid in the pores, Pulsed Neutron Technology - for fluid saturation in cased hole condition, cased hole resistivity measurements, Shear wave velocity measurements etc. by B. Bharali,(Suptdg. Geologist) Figure: A simple Petrophysical Interpretation

Input Log Data

Petrophysical Model

Some Important outputs