BASIC
ROCK PHYSICS
Rocks, Oil, Gas, Water, and Other Valuables
All of my 50+ year career has been involved with the science of
Petrophysics, literally the physics of rocks, in some way or
another. Petrophysics is a branch of Geoscience and intimately
linked to geology, geophysics, and petroleum / mining
engineering. There is no degree granted in pure petrophysics, so
people in this field are often graduates of a closely related
specialty and are self-taught from there.
Petrophysics is mainly used in petroleum exploitation, but also
in defining mining and ground water resources.
To understand petrophysics, you need to understand rocks and the
fluids they contain, how the earth's surface and subsurface
change shape, and how pressure, temperature, and chemical
reactions change rocks and fluids over eons of time. That's a
tall order.

Microphotograph of a rock -- black colour is the porosity
where
oil, gas, and water can be held inside the rock
Rocks
are formed in several ways, but usually end up as moderately flat
layers, at least initially (mountain building comes later). As
successive layers are laid on top of each other, the Earth
builds a sequence of rocks with varying physical properties.
Some layers will have open spaces, called pores or porosity,
that contain fluids (water, oil, or gas). A rock on Earth with
porosity cannot be "empty" -- they must contain something, even
if it is only air.
Think of a porous rock as similar to a
huge sponge full of holes that can soak up fluids. Although we
often talk about "oil pools", these are not tanks of oil
underground -- they are porous rocks. The porosity, or quantity
of open space relative to the total rock volume, can range from
near zero to as much as 40%. Obviously, higher values of this
physical property of a rock are good news.
Some
rocks have very little porosity and do not hold much in the way
of fluids. These are often called "tight" rocks. Both tight and
porous rocks can contain animal and plant residue that are
ultimately transformed into hydrocarbons such as coal, oil, or
natural gas that we can extract and use to power vehicles and
heat our homes. As the plant and animal residues mature into oil
or gas, they may migrate through porosity or natural fractures
in the rock until trapped by a non-porous rock structure.
Sometimes a rock only sources itself or an adjacent porous rock,
so little migration occurs.
An anticline, the simplest form of petroleum trap 
Rocks that are capable of holding hydrocarbons in economic
quantities are called reservoir rocks. Rocks in which the plant
and animal residue has not been fully converted to useful
hydrocarbons are called source rocks. Some rocks are both source
and reservoir: others are barren of hydrocarbons, and some
others may act as the trapping mechanism that keeps hydrocarbons
from migrating to the surface and escaping.
A trap is what keeps oil and gas in the rocks until we drill
wells to extract the hydrocarbons. Coal, being a solid, doesn't
need a trap to be kept in place.
 Reservoirs
that contain oil or gas also contain water. The quantity of
water relative to the porosity is called the water saturation.
In the illustrations, the brown colour is solid rock grains and
the space around the grains is the porosity. The black colour is
the hydrocarbon and the white is the water, which forms a thin
film coating the surfaces of each rock grain. This is a
water-wet reservoir (left). In an oil-wet reservoir, the black
and white colours are reversed (right).
Finding and evaluating the economics of such reservoirs is the
job of teams of geoscientists and engineers in petroleum and
mining companies. A petrophysicist, or someone playing this
role, will be part of that team.
Once a useful accumulation has been found, drilling, completion,
and production engineers take over to put wells on stream. Oil
production may initially flow to surface due to the pressure in
the reservoir. Some oil pools do not have enough pressure to do
this and need to be pumped. Depending on the reservoir drive
mechanism, some wells that start flowing will later need to be
pumped. Water may be produced with the oil. It is separated and
disposed of by re-injection into a nearby unproductive reservoir
layer. You can't just dump the water in the nearest swamp.

Aquifer Drive - Before and After
Production Gas Cap Drive
Gas Expansion Drive
An aquifer drive mechanism usually maintains the reservoir
pressure for some time but may drop off gradually. Recovery factors vary from 30 to 80% of the oil in place. The oil water
contact rises as production depletes the oil. A gas cap drive
pushes oil out as the gas expands. Recovery factor is similar to
aquifer drive. There may or may not be some aquifer support.
the gas oil contact drops as the oil is depleted. Gas expansion
reservoirs do not have aquifer or gas cap support. Gas dissolved
in the oil expels oil into the well bore because the pressure at
the well bore is below the reservoir pressure. Recovery factor is
awful - usually less than 10%, but this can be improved to maybe
20% by injecting water nearby to increase or maintain the
reservoir pressure. Water floods, carbon dioxide injection, and
re-injection of produced gas or water can be used in nearly any
reservoir to improve recovery efficiency.
Gas wells do not need pumps, but if they also produce water, a
special process called artificial lift is used to get the water
out. That water is also disposed of legally.
The
economics of a reservoir varies with improving technology.
Bypassed reservoirs, discovered and ignored years ago, are now
economic due to technical improvements in drilling practices and
reservoir stimulation techniques. Horizontal wells and deep
water drilling are now common. The use of heat or steam to assist
production of heavy oil or bitumen, and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing to
stimulate production in tighter reservoirs are relatively new
techniques and relatively economic today. Obviously the specific
price of oil or gas after delivery to the customer plays an
important role in how much effort can be expended to recover oil
and gas from underground.
There is controversy, of course, about new technology. Just as
the Luddites resisted the weaving machines in the early 1800's,
modern Luddites insist that the old ways of oil and gas
extraction are best, while at the same time complaining loudly
about the price of gasoline at the pumps or the cost of
electricity for their air conditioners. You can't have low-cost
and low-tech at the same time.
BASIC PETROPHYSICAL
CONCEPTS
"Last week, I couldn't spell Petrophysicist. Now I are one."
That describes me in 1962 as I moved from Montreal to Red Deer,
Alberta to run well logs for a company called Schlumberger. The
word petrophysics had been coined 12 years earlier by a
geologist named Gus Archie and it wasn't used much back in the
day. Lately it has attained a certain cachet, denoting a professional
level career path.
Illustration of a wireline logging job: logging truck with
computer cabin, cable and winch (right), cable strung from
winch into drilling rig derrick and lowered into bore hole, with
logging tool at the end of the cable. Logs are recording while
pulling the tool up the hole. Logs can also be run with special
tools located at the bottom of the drilling string, or
conventional tools can be conveyed on coiled tubing.
What is a "well log" you ask. It is a record of measurements of
physical properties of rocks taken in a well bore, usually
drilled for oil or gas, but possibly for ground water or
minerals. Think of a ship's log. The first record of such a log
dates back to 1846 when Lord Kelvin measured temperature
versus depth in water wells in England, from which he deduced
that the Earth was 7000 years old. The fact that he was wrong is
not important. Log analysis is an imperfect science.
The first logs for oil field investigation were run by the
Schlumberger brothers, Marcel and Conrad, in 1928 in
Pechebron, France. Soon, the service migrated to North and South
America, Russia, and other locations in Asia. At that time, the
only measurement that could be made was of the electrical
resistivity of the rocks. High resistivity meant porous rock
with oil or gas, or porous rock with fresh water, or tight rock
with very low porosity. Low resistivity meant porous rock with
salty water or shale. Take your pick. Local knowledge helped.
One virtue of the well log was that the top
and bottom of each rock layer could be defined quite accurately.
When the log and depths were compared to the rock sample chips
created by the drilling process, a reasonable geological
interpretation might be possible, but was far from infallible.
By 1932, the spontaneous potential (SP) measurement was added.
The analysis rules expanded: low SP meant shale, or tight rock,
or fresh water. High values meant salt water with or without
oil or gas in a porous rock. The resistivity could then be used
to decide on water versus hydrocarbons. Perfect. Except there
were lots of shades of grey and the SP was not always capable of
defining anything.

Logs from
1932 in Oil City-Titusville area, Pennsylvania, the location of
Edwin Drake's "First Oil Well" (in the USA - 6 other countries had
oil wells predating this one). His well was only 69 feet deep, so it
penetrated just to the top of these logs, which found deeper and
more prolific reservoirs. Each pair of curves represents the
measured data versus depth for one well. The SP is the left hand
curve of each pair; deflections to the left (shaded) show porous
rock. The resistivity is the curve on the right of each pair.
Deflections to the right (shaded) show high resistivity, and when
combined with a good SP deflection, indicate oil zones. Some good
quality rocks in this example do not have high resistivity and are
most likely water bearing.
The gamma ray log
appeared in 1936. The rules were easy: low value equaled porous
reservoir or tight rocks. High values were shale. It said
nothing about fluid content.
By 1942, Gus Archie had defined a couple of quantitative methods
that turned analysis into a mathematical game, instead of just
some simple rules of thumb. His major work established a
relationship between resistivity, water saturation, and
porosity. If we knew porosity from rock samples measured in the
lab, and a few other parameters, we could calculate water
saturation from the resistivity log values. This was really new
news.
He even attempted to calculate porosity from the resistivity
log. This worked in high quality (high porosity) reservoirs but
had problems in low quality rocks or heavy oil.

This is an example of a modern sonic log with gamma ray and
caliper curves (far left), shear and compressional sonic travel
time curves (middle) and sonic waveform image log (right).
Depths are shown in the narrow track next to the gamma ray
curve.
Just after 1945, a method that investigated the response of
rocks to neutron bombardment became available. The neutron log
was the first porosity indicating well log. High values meant
low porosity or high porosity with gas. Low values meant high
porosity with oil or water, or shale. Add the gamma ray log, SP,
and resistivity and again the world was perfect, except for all
those shades of grey. Calibrating the response to porosity
depended on a lot of well bore environmental parameters (hole
size, mud weight, temperature) so it was not terribly accurate.
It wasn't until 1958 that the measurement of the velocity (or
travel time) of sound through rocks in a well bore was achieved.
It turned out that the travel time was a linear function of
porosity and a few other factors.
Shortly after 1960, another
porosity indicating log appeared that measured the apparent
density of the rocks. Porosity was a linear function of density
-- higher density meant lower porosity.
Both sonic travel time
and density as measured by these logs could be transformed into
moderately accurate porosity values, using the gamma ray to
discount shale, and the resistivity to distinguish between
salty water and oil. Fresh water was still a problem and gas
zones could only be located if a neutron log was also run.
This was the state of petrophysics when I entered the scene in
1962. The rules were obvious, the
math was easy. And running the logging tools into the well bore
meant lots of travel. I loved the job. There were no computers
on every desk, calculators were bigger and heavier than
typewriters, so the quantitative work was done with penciland
paper or sliderule. Anybody know what a sliderule is?
Later, with sidetracks into seismic data processing, reservoir
engineering, project management, and seismic data center
management, I finally noticed that petrophysics was the underlying
foundation of much of geology, geophysics, and reservoir
engineering.
That realization led me to my consulting and teaching career. I got to see a lot of
the world, wrote
a dozen or more
software packages, analyzed the log data from thousands of
wells, and saw even more more of the world,
This
may be the only editorial cartoon ever published in a newspaper
(Calgary Herald, circa 1974 - 75) concerning petrophysical
analysis.
That`s me peering down a borehole
on Melville Island NWT, estimating the gas reserves to be "four
trillion cubic feet". The final value was closer to 17 trillion.
I was the log analyst and logging supervisor on about 140 wells
in the Canadian Arctic across a 10 year period. We didn`t use
our eyeballs to look into the wellbores directly, of course; we
used well logs and calcualtions based on those measurements
to do what our eyes could not.
Mainframe
computers and dumb terminals were really unfriendly
environments. It was
apparent that some portable form of computer was needed to do
the math and make pretty images of our results to show to
management and team members. Five years
before the IBM-PC, the HP9825 calculator became a computer and LOG/MATE,
"The Friendly Log Analysis System", was born (1976).
Today, far more sophisticated and powrerful systems are common,
but LOG/MATE was the first.

Advertisemenys for two
of my forays into the software
business:
LOG/MATE (1976I and META/LOG (1986)
We now call the business "Integrated Petrophysics" because we
use much more than log data to get our answers. Lab data from
core analysis, such as porosity, permeability and grain density,
are critical input parameters used to calibrate our work. More
exotic lab measurements have become more common as we move into
unconventional reservoir types like shale gas and tight oil
prospects.
TYPES and USES OF WELL
LOG and LABORATORY DATA
The table
below might not mean too much to someone who is not in the oil
and gas business, but it will give everyone an idea of the scope
of work, wealth of data types, and the multiplicity of uses that
petrophysical data can be applied to.
DATA USES - General Outline
Petrophysical Analysis
Geophysical Applications
Geological Applications
Drilling Applications
Engineering Applications
Completion Applications
Production Applications
DATA USES -
Petrophysical Analysis
Shale Content
Porosity
Lithology
Water Saturation
Movable Hydrocarbon
Irreducible Water Saturation
Water Cut / Relative Permeability
Permeability / Productivity
Fracture Intensity / Orientation
Fluid Contacts - Original and Dated
Productive Intervals
Swept Zones
Pore Volume / Hydrocarbon Pore Volume
Flow Capacity
"Net Pay"
Where Are The Reserves?
How Much Does This Well Contribute?
DATA USES - Geophysical Applications
Velocity and Density
Seismic Modelling
?
Synthetic Seismograms
Editing Logs for Seismic
Bad Hole Condition
Invasion
Missing Log Data
Modeling Hypothetical Rock Sequences
Modeling Hypothetical Fluid Content
Vertical Seismic Profiles
Seismic While Drilling
Calibrating Seismic Inversion
Calibrating Seismic Attributes
Amplitude versus Offset Models
Is the Seismic Interpretation Realistic?
DATA USES - Geological Applications
Reservoir Description
Structure and Stratigraphy
Dip and Direction
Sedimentary Models
Sequence Stratigraphy
Bedding Type / Orientation
Mineralogy
Depositional Environment
Tectonic Structures
Sedimentary Structures
Multi-well Analysis
Cross Sections / Fence Diagrams
3-D Visualization
Correlation and Mapping
Geostatistics
Conventional
Fractal
What Are the Geologic Risks?
DATA USES - Drilling Applications
Designing Vertical Wells
Designing Deviated Wells
Designing Horizontal Wells
Drilling Prognosis
Overpressure
Stress Regimes / Fractures
Borehole Stability
Bit Selection
Cost Estimates
Where Are The Drilling Risks?
DATA USES - Engineering Applications
Calculating Reserves
Calculating Productivity
Calculating Cash Flow
Reservoir Simulation / Modeling
History Matching
Production Prediction
Production Optimization
Economic Analysis
Is The Well/Pool/Project Any Good?
DATA USES - Completion Applications
Perforating Interval
Stress Regime / Orientation
Hydraulic Fracture Design
Acidizing / Other Treatments
Sand Control
Maximize Productivity
Are There More Targets?
Is production maximized?
DATA USES - Production Applications
Through Casing Reservoir Description
Fluid Identification
Cement Evaluation
Casing Inspection
Flow and Production Analysis
Gas Leak Detection
How Do We Repair The Well? |
DATA TYPES General Outline
Seismic
Magnetics
Gravity
Radiometrics
Air / Satellite Images
Well History
Tops, Tests, Cores, Perfs, Logs, Status
Logs - Many Variations
Cores - Many Types of Analyses
Data Gathering Considerations
Data Digitizing
Project Planning
Quality Control
DATA TYPES - ENGINEERING
Fluid Properties
Pressure Transient
Wellhead / Bottomhole Pressures
Production History
Injection History
Completion Diagram
Facilities In Place / Needed
Economics / Costs / Prices
DATA TYPES
While Drilling
Sample Descriptions
Drilling Records
Mud Logs
Core Descriptions
Measurements While Drilling
Logging While Drilling
Seismic While Drilling
DATA TYPES
After Drilling
Conventional Open Hole Logs
Image Logs
Thin Bed Tools and Processing
Petrophysical Analysis Results
Geological Correlations / Maps
Seismic Analysis / VSP
Test Results
Core Analysis Results
DATA TYPES - Open Hole Logs
Resistivity and Resistivity Imaging
Acoustic and Full Wave Acoustic
Natural and Spectral Gamma Ray
Formation Density and Litho Density
Neutron Porosity
Dipmeter and Deviation Surveys
Formation Imager and Televiewer
Electromagnetic
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Induced Gamma Ray Spectroscopy
Pulsed Neutron and Activation
Pressure Profiles / Sample Taker
Sidewall Cores
DATA TYPES After Completion
Cased Hole Logging
Reservoir Description Logs
Production Logs
Casing / Cement Evaluation Logs
Bottom Hole Pressure Survey
Well Test Results
Initial Production / AOF / IPR
DATA TYPES Special Cases
Horizontal / Deviated Wells
Logging Through Drill Pipe
Coiled Tubing Logging
DATA TYPES Core Data
Conventional Core Analysis
Permeability, Porosity, Saturation
Grain Density Lithology Description
Special Core Analysis
Electrical Properties
Capillary Pressure
Relative Permeability
Thin Section Petrography
Scanning Electron Micrographs
X-Ray Diffraction
Infra-red Mineralogy
Core Imaging
White Light
Ultra Violet Light
X-Ray
CT Scans
DATA TYPES Fluid Properties
Density, Viscosity
Water Resistivity, Chemical Analysis
Oil / Gas Analyses
DATA TYPES Pressure Transient
Pressure versus Time
Buildup or Drawdown
Horner / Ramey Plots
PBU Modeling / Curve Fitting
Static Wellhead Pressure
Static Bottom Hole Pressure
DATA TYPES Production Data
Oil / Gas / Water Rates
Changes With Time
Completion History
Well / Pool / Reservoir Summaries
Deliverability Analysis Results
|
BASIC VISUAL LOG
ANALYSIS
I have been
teaching the practical application of petrophysics since 1967.
The seminars always start with "What is a log?" and "What do we
do with them?". The first question was answered in the previous
section. Here, I'll try to provide an answer to the second, just
as it s done in the seminar. We use the rules as developed over
the last 80 years and apply them to the individual log curves as
we see them on paper or on a computer screen.
The step by step procedure using Crain's Rules will reduce the
complexcity considerably and give you a straight forward path
toward your goal. The illustration below is to give you a few of
the basic rules in one single illustration. Further on there is
a more detailed coverage of the Rules.
Lets
start with just 3 curves - the gamma ray (GR), resistivity, and
a porosity indicating log (a sonic in this example). The GR is
at the far left and the sonic is the left edge of the red
shading. The resistivity and sonic have been overlaid to make it
easier to see the shape of the two curves relative to each
other.
Basic Rule "A":
When GR (or SP) deflect to the left, the zone is clean and
might be a reservoir quality rock. When GR deflects to the
right, the zone is usually shale (not a reservoir quality rock).
There are exceptions to this rule, of course.
Basic Rule "B":
Porosity logs are
scaled to show higher porosity to the left and lower porosity to
the right. Clean and porous is good, so compare the GR to the
porosity log and mark clean+porous zones.
Basic Rule "C": Resistivity logs
are scaled to show higher resistivity toward the right. Higher resistivities mean hydrocarbons or low porosity. Low resistivity
means shale or water zones. So clean+porous+high resistivity are
good. There are exceptions to this rule too.
The exceptions are what makes the
job interesting. There are low resistivity pay zones,
radioactive (high GR) pay zones, gas shales, oil shales, coal
bed methane, and low porosity zones that produce for years.
To learn more, go to
Crain's
Petrophysical Handbook

Copyright ©
E. R. (Ross) Crain, P.Eng.
email
|