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SPE 134402

A New Look at Low-Resistivity and Low-Contrast (LRLC) Pay in


Clastic Reservoirs
Michel Claverie, David F. Allen, Nick Heaton, and Georgiy Bordakov, Schlumberger

Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Florence, Italy, 19–22 September 2010.

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 of the paper have not been reviewed by
the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members.
Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an
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Abstract that reduce the uncertainty of fluid volumes and rock flow
LRLC reservoirs are increasingly at the forefront of the properties.
industry’s concern in diverse projects ranging from offshore Introduction
deep-water exploration of turbidites to the development of Recent advances in measurement technology have provided
brown-field secondary objectives. Although LRLC reservoirs the petrophysicist with powerful new tools for the
have been under production for many years, their identification and quantitative evaluation of low resistivity and
identification and the calculation of their reserves and flow low contrast pay in clastic reservoirs. As new improved
properties remains a difficult challenge. This paper compares measurements are introduced, it is essential that appropriate
different petrophysical workflows for clastic reservoirs where interpretation methodologies are also developed which
thin conductive laminations and high bound water fraction are capitalize on the additional information available. In order to
the source of low resistivity and contrast, with a view to bring the new measurements to bear on the problem of LRLC
reducing uncertainty in saturations and improving pay, it is crucial that interpretation workflows not only provide
producibility prediction. accurate evaluations but that they are also efficient and that
When thinly laminated reservoir layers are intercalated answers can be delivered in a timely manner to facilitate
with conductive non-reservoir layers, the apparent formation critical decision making.
resistivity is dramatically reduced and the apparent clay Triaxial induction tools1 have been developed over the past
volume is increased, and the hydrocarbon volume and the decade, providing measures of resistivity anisotropy that relate
permeability calculated from conventional petrophysics are directly to sand-shale laminations. Quantitative analysis,
underestimated. We describe new developments in laminated usually based on a bimodal formation model comprising
sand analysis and the practical implementation of resistivity resistive hydrocarbon-bearing course sand and conductive
anisotropy, including corrections for clay intrinsic anisotropy shale or fine grain layers, yields fluid saturations in the
and thin non-reservoir resistive layers. resistive layers.
Reservoirs with fine grain material, grain-coating clays, or Few would argue that proper integration of measurements
dispersed clays may display high bound water volumes, yet is not essential for robust petrophysical interpretation. Indeed,
possess significant quantities of producible hydrocarbon. most commercial petrophysics software packages today
While conventional petrophysical analysis can provide reliable provide multi-mineral solvers which perform a global
water saturation, it does not distinguish clay- and capillary- optimization of parameters (eg fractional volumes) to fit
bound water from free water. Also, shaly and silty reservoirs arrays of diverse log measurements. In general, it is relatively
often present a complex mineralogy which makes estimates of mature log measurements which are incorporated in
clay volume and grain density uncertain. We describe the commercial interpretation applications. New generation tools
application of nuclear spectroscopy and NMR logs to calculate often remain detached from integrated analysis, either due to a
clay volume, porosity and bound water volume and illustrate natural lag in implementation time, or because existing
their impact on the quality of the resulting evaluation. interpretation frameworks themselves do not readily
Although the petrophysical methods presented were accommodate the new measurements. In this paper, we
developed for thinly bedded reservoirs, we show that they can present results of fit-for-purpose workflows which have been
improve the analysis of both LRLC and conventional clastic designed specifically to address the processing and integration
reservoirs. In particular, we propose fit-for-purpose workflows of multiple new generation tools to address petrophysical log
interpretation in LRLC formations.
2 SPE 134402

The overall workflow is shown in Figures 1 & 2. First a The porosity of the sand component is computed from the
conventional analysis of mineralogy & porosity, followed by measured total porosity, the fraction of laminated shale and
water saturation using Archie, Waxman Smits or Dual Water, the shale porosity (selected in a nearby thick shale):
along with a thin bed flag driven by analysis of resistivity
PHI_sand = (PHIT – PHI_sh * Fsh) / (1- Fsh) (1)
anisotropy. Next, each interval to be evaluated is determined
to be either thickly bedded and adequately evaluated by the in which:
logs or thinly bedded, requiring bimodal analysis. PHI_sand is the porosity of the sand laminations
These two sequential workflows begin with raw tool data PHI_sh is the porosity of the shale laminations
and finally generate interpreted logs with accompanying Fsh is the fraction of shale laminations
reports. Non-standard measurements such as nuclear
spectroscopy, NMR, dielectric dispersion and triaxial To avoid instability at high shale fractions, PHI_sand is set
induction logs are integrated efficiently with conventional log to PHIT when Fsh = 1. PHI_sand is gradually bent towards
data in tailored workflows, maximizing the value of the PHIT when Fsh exceeds 70%. Similar logic sets the sand
measurements and providing reliable timely input for critical resistivity to Rv at high values of Fsh.
decision making.
Maintaining Compatibility & Combining the Results
Logic to Analyze Thickly Bedded LRLC Reservoirs Many softwares exist to perform conventional analysis and
(Conventional Analysis – CA) others exist to perform bimodal analysis. A number of
While different mechanisms of low resistivity and low difficulties arise which can reduce efficiency and cause
contrast pay have long been recognized and understood, differences in the two types of analyse that are accidental,
characterization of LRLC formations was limited initially by rather than due to systematic differences in the models:
the lack of suitable log measurements. Fortunately, several • The input data selected may be different.
key technologies are now available which address some of the • Computed, intermediate curves common to each such
specific challenges in these environments. For example, the as total porosity may not be the same.
accurate determination of clay volume, permeability and • The equations, exponents and parameters may not be
irreducible water saturation from mineralogy, ideally derived the same. Retaining identical zoning is also
from nuclear spectroscopy data2 has been key in reducing important.
uncertainty in petrophysical evaluation of clastics. Similarly, • It is difficult to combine (splice) the results because
pulsed NMR logging tools, first introduced in the early the set of output arrays is usually different.
nineties3,4 have since evolved significantly5,6 and are now • When computing net reservoir and pay, and average
regularly employed for delineating LRLC formations. & integrated properties the cutoff parameters are
NMR logs are unique in that they respond to fluid usually different, and care must be takes to use the
mobility, providing quantitative estimates of bound and free same cutoff values.
fluid volumes. For example, low resistivity pay associated The thin bed interpretation software described here
with anomalous high bound water volume in fine grained overcomes these difficulties by building all of the logic into a
sediments can be identified from NMR logs. Similarly, the single application. Changes to parameter settings for one
occurrence of movable fluids detected by NMR in low method are automatically echoed to the other parts of the
resistivity shaly formations often belies the presence of computation. Final summations are then applied to a
laminations which may be easily overlooked by inspecting homogeneous, consistent, spliced data set. The cutoffs used
conventional logs. are listed in Table 2.
The approach taken here is to compute irreducible water
saturation and permeability using both the mineral volume / Thin Bed Detection Flag
specific surface area and NMR approaches. After optimizing Direct detection of thinly bedded pay zones by inspection of
parameters the analyst selects one of the two results for use. resistivity anisotropy – the ratio of Rv to Rh – was one
application which drove development of triaxial induction
Logic to Analyze Thinly Bedded LRLC Reservoirs tools12. However, it soon became apparent that the
(Bimodal Analysis – BA) interpretation of resistivity anisotropy was more complex than
Leveraging resistivity anisotropy data via a bimodal model has had initially been hoped. Shales were sometimes found to
proved successful for quantitatively evaluating reservoirs have intrinsic anispotropy in excess of that present in thinly
where the beds of interest are thinner than the vertical bedded LRLC zones, causing LRLC zones to remain
resolution of the input logs7,8,9. The method relies on the overlooked. Conversely, the presence of thin low porosity
validity of the bimodal model, the accuracy with which shale (high resistivity) stringers can occasionally result in increased
resistivity and porosity are known, and the accuracy of anisotropy, leading such zones to be falsely detected as LRLC
estimated shale fraction (Fsh). pay.
Fsh is estimated from NMR10, the Rh/ Rv crossplot (Klein A new anisotropy flag has been designed to reflect
plot)9 or an indicator such as GR or Swb. The Thomas-Steiber resistivity anisotropy which is solely due to the thin beds
method11 is also included. Sw in the sands is computed from unresolved by lithology and porosity while taking into account
the resistivity of the sand fraction and its porosity using intrinsic resistivity anisotropy of shales and low porosity
Waxman Smits, Dual Water or the Archie equation. In the stringers. The definition is based on the petrophysical model
absence of other data, the sands are taken to be 100% clean. of shaly sands governed by the following assumptions:
SPE 134402 3

1. The formation is divided into “slabs” – thin uniform and BVsand can be expressed as functions of Rh bed and
layers corresponding to clay bound water saturation
Swb and total porosity φt measurements, which are Rh bed . From inversion results the total volume of
grouped in “beds” – thicker layers for which average hydrocarbons in a bed can be calculated as
horizontal and vertical resistivity measurements are
k

2.
assigned from triaxial induction logs.
Horizontal and vertical resistivities for each slab are Voil = ∑ φt i ⋅ 1 − Swt i( )
i =1
defined based on dual water equations, while average
resistivities for a bed are obtained from slab
resistivities through proper averaging – harmonic for Typical inversion results are presented in Figure 3.
horizontal and arithmetic for vertical resistivity. This figure illustrates the conclusion that for a given bed
horizontal resistivity, bed vertical resistivity can only have
Based on Swb values relative to a cutoff Swb shale
( )
3.
values in a particular range from Rvbed min Rhbed to
slabs are considered either isotropic “sands” or

4.
anisotropic “shales”.
Capillary bound and free water volumes are divided
( )
Rvbed max Rhbed , which can be determined by inversion of
in two parts – water associated with clays and with the model equations. The boundaries of this range include
sands. information on lithology and porosity and account for shale
a. Water saturation associated with clays is resistivity anisotropy. For a fixed horizontal resistivity the
assumed to be proportional to Swb . The range becomes wider with more variability of Swb and φt
proportionality coefficient d is considered and narrower with less variability (for fixed Swb and φt the
constant within a bed. range degenerates to a single point).
b. Water volume associated with sands BVsand is Therefore if resolution of lithology and porosity data is good
assumed constant within a bed. enough the range covers the measured vertical resistivity. If
c. Both assumptions above apply unless total water this resolution is poor the range becomes narrow and likely
does not cover the vertical resistivity value. Thus a corrected
saturation Swt calculated based upon them is resistivity anisotropy ratio defined as
less than 100%. Otherwise cutoff value of 1 is
used for Swt . ⎧ Rvbed
⎪ (
, Rvbed ≤ Rvbed min Rhbed )
With this model the average horizontal and vertical (
⎪ vbed min Rhbed
R )

resistivities of a bed are defined by the equations: raniso = ⎨1, ( ) (
Rvbed min Rhbed < Rvbed < Rvbed max Rhbed )

⎪ R
Rhbed ( d , BVsand ) = vbed
(
, Rvbed ≥ Rvbed max Rhbed )
−1
⎪R (
⎩ vbed max Rhbed )
⎡ k m ⎛ Swbi Swt i − Swbi ⎞⎤
k ⎢ ∑ φt i sand i ⋅ Swt i ni −1 ⋅ ⎜ + ⎟⎟ ⎥ , is an indicator of unresolved thin beds in which Bimodal
⎜ Rwbi
⎣⎢ i =1 ⎝ Rw f i ⎠ ⎦⎥ Analysis (BA) is recommended. In other intervals, CA is
preferred. An advantage of the proposed anisotropy flag
Rvbed ( d , BVsand ) = definition is in the fact that it is free from the formation
−1 bimodality assumption.
1 k ⎡ mnet i ⎛ Swbi Swt i − Swbi ⎞⎤
∑ ⎢φt i ⋅ Swt i ni −1 ⋅ ⎜
k i =1 ⎣⎢ ⎜ Rwbi
+ ⎟⎟ ⎥ ,
Note that because porosity is an input to the computation of
⎝ Rw f i ⎠ ⎦⎥ Rvbed max variations in porosity due to thin tight layers result
in an increased Rvbed max . Such intervals of “bed anisotropy”,
⎛ BVsand ⎞
Swt i = min ⎜ 1, Swbi + + d ⋅ Swbi ⎟ , are falsely interpreted as hydrocarbon bearing with Bimodal
⎜ φt i ⎟
⎝ ⎠ Analysis but are excluded by the thin bed flag logic.
⎧ msand i , Swb < Swb shale Merge logic
mnet i = ⎨
⎩ mshalei , Swb ≥ Swb shale Example 1
The importance of identifying intervals containing laminated
where i is a slab index, Rwb , Rw f are respective clay shale for analysis with bimodal analysis methods, versus those
in which the shale is dispersed and conventional analysis
msand , mshale are
bound water and free water resistivities, applies is explored in Figure 4. The figure contrasts
Archie cementation exponents for sands and shales, and n is intermediate results key for computation of saturation from the
an Archie saturation exponent. two interpretations over three intervals, noted as Upper,
By inversion of the equations above the model parameters d Middle and Lower. Assuming that an interval is
homogeneous and that the clay is dispersed (or structural),
4 SPE 134402

reduces porosity and increases water saturation. Assuming over the conventional analysis. The dielectric dispersion log
that the interval is layered and that the shale is laminated is inverted to calculate a shallow (1 in.) and a deep (4 in.)
decreases the water saturation. water-filled porosity3. We observe a small separation between
Using Conventional Analysis (CA) the interval is the shallow and deep dielectric measurements, caused by a
interpreted to consist of 129 feet of shaley sand. Of this 24.5 shallow filtrate invasion into the high viscosity oil reservoir.
feet meet the cutoffs for reservoir and 17 feet meet the However, the 4 in. inversion reaches into the non-invaded
additional Sw cutoff for pay. Using Bimodal Analysis (BA) zone and the deep dielectric saturation matches the saturation
the interval is interpreted to consist of 58 feet of clean sand from the resistivity anisotropy bimodal analysis. The small
and 71 feet of shale. Of the sand, 47 feet meet the cutoffs for volume of filtrate invading the formation is also observed as a
reservoir and pay. It is the Fsh cutoff, 75%, that accounts for late node (300 ms) on the NMR T1 distribution at 1.5 in. depth
the reduction from 71 feet of total sand to 47 ft of reservoir of investigation. We also note that the shallow invasion,
sand. Differences in the evaluation are shown in more detail which is a sign of hydrocarbon mobility, is not observed on
in Table 1. the Rxo log which has a depth of investigation of 4 in.
The large differences between the BA and CA analyses in The lower section is very thinly laminated, with a small
this well are due to resistivity anisotropy (Rv > Rh, so Rsand sand fraction Fsand of 20%. The anisotropy is picked up by
>> Rh) and the way that the shale content is treated in the two the thin bed detection flag, and Rsand is boosted to 25 ohm.m
models. The BA model assumes that the shale is laminated. from a Rh of 2 ohm.m, resulting in a gain of hydrocarbon
Since the shale porosity is less than the total porosity in the saturation of 30 s.u.. However, the borehole image indicates
zone of interest the porosity of the sand fraction is that the sands are a fraction of an inch thick, and we note that
significantly increased. The CA model assumes that the shale the dielectric porosity, despite an intrinsic vertical resolution
is dispersed. This leads to computation of a significant of 1 in., does not readily identify the hydrocarbon in these
volume of clay bound water in the sand and a reduction in sands thinner than 1 inch. We also notice that the NMR does
effective porosity. not identify filtrate invasion, as it did in the upper section, so
we suggest that this lower section is unlikely to be productive.
Example 2
Figure 5 shows a thinly bedded interval overlaying a clean Discussion
sandstone. Development of thin beds is indicated by the thin High resolution measurements not only indicate the presence
bed detection flag, reflecting the increase in resistivity of potential hydrocarbon-bearing thin beds, but also can be
anisotropy. used to determine more accurate sand/shale fractions and may
A dielectric dispersion log was also recorded over this allow relaxation of the bimodal approximation used in low
interval (Figure 6). This log measures a high-resolution resolution analysis14, 15. Future work is ongoing to
water-filled porosity which, subtracted from total porosity, quantitatively incorporate high-resolution measurements and
provides a direct volume of hydrocarbons independent of resolution enhancement methodologies.
water salinity and Archie electrical parameters13. The Additional priorities include incorporation of additional
dielectric porosity accurately measures the hydrocarbon methodologies for analysis of LRP reservoirs and enabling
volume in thin beds above XX10 ft, and matches the results of analysis of the sensitivity of the result to input measurements
the resistivity anisotropy evaluation. Where the resistivity & parameters.
anisotropy evaluates the bulk hydrocarbon volume, the
dielectric log measures the individual thin beds water-filled Conclusions
porosity. The conventional porosity-resistivity evaluation A new LRLC interpretation workflow has been developed
significantly underestimates the hydrocarbon volume in the incorporating existing logic appropriate for thick bedded &
thin beds zone, but matches the two thin beds analysis thin bedded intervals LRLC reservoirs. The two methods are
methods in the thick reservoirs section below XX17 ft. implemented in a parallel, linked manner to ensure consistent
This is a high viscosity oil reservoir (already described in parameters and equations are applied, and that the resulting
Ref. 13), with very shallow to no invasion. In these conditions, analyses can be compared quantitatively.
the shallow dielectric porosity measures the fluids in the Newly developed logic exploits resistivity anisotropy to
uninvaded zone. The high oil viscosity volume is also detect thinly bedded intervals where bimodal analysis should
observed as the short node (approx. 3 ms) of the NMR T1 be applied. The detection flag is based on resistivity
distribution. anisotropy corrected for intrinsic anisotropy of shales and
variations of porosity. This flag definition is free from the
Example 3 formation bimodality assumption.
A 2nd example from the same well illustrates the application of The software incorporates a merged analysis step and
resistivity anisotropy in thinly bedded reservoirs, and its integrated reservoir summations enabling the analyst to select
complementarity with other LRLC analysis methods. Figure 7 the appropriate result for each interval.
displays the analysis across 2 sections of distinct properties.
The upper section – above XX85 ft – is laminated with Acknowledgements
sands thicknesses of a few inches as shown by the borehole The authors wish to thank the Thin Beds Advisor development
image. We observe a Rv/Rh contrast from which we compute team.
a large sand fraction Fsand of 95%. The bimodal analysis
(BA) calculates an additional 10 s.u. hydrocarbon saturation
SPE 134402 5

References 8. Clavaud, J.B., Nelson, R., Guru, U, and Wang, H. Field Example
of Enhanced Hydrocarbon Estimation in Thinly Laminated
1. Rosthal, R., Barber, T., Bonner, S., Chen, K., Davydycheva, I., Formation With a Triaxial Array Induction Tool: A Laminated
Hazen, G., Homan, D., Kibbe, C., Minerbo, G., Schlein, R., Sand-Shale Sequence With Anisotropic Shale, 2005, SPWLA
Villegas, L., Wang, H., and Zhou, F.: "Field tests of an 46th Annual Logging Symposium.
experimental fully triaxial induction tool," presented at 2003 9. CaoMinh, C., Clavaud, J.B., Sundararaman, P., Froment, S.,
SPWLA Annual Logging Symposium, June 22-25, Galveston, Caroli, E., Billon, O., David, G., and Fairburn, R., 2008,
TX, paper QQ Graphical Analysis of Laminated Sand-Shale Formations in the
2. Herron, S.L. and Herron, M.M. : “Quantitative Lithology: An Presence of Anisotropic Shales, Petrophysics, Vol. 49, NO. 5
application for open and cased hole spectroscopy”, Transactions (October 2008).
of the SPWLA 37th Annual Logging Symposium, New Orleans, 10. Cao Minh, C. and Sundararaman, P., 2006, NMR Petrophysics in
LA, June 16-19, 1996. Thin Sand-Shale Laminations, SPE 102435: Society of
3. Miller, M.N., Paltiel, Z., Gillen, M.E., Granot, J. and Bouton, J.C.: Petroleum Engineers, presented at the SPE Annual Technical
“Spin Echo Magnetic Resonance Logging: Porosity and Free Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas.
Fluid Index Determination,” paper SPE 20561, presented at the 11. Thomas, E.C. and Stieber, S.J., The Distribution of Shale in
65th SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New Sandstones and its Effect Upon Porosity, SPWLA 16th Annual
Orleans, Louisiana, USA (September 23-26, 1990. Logging Symposium Transactions, 1975.
4. Kleinberg, R.L., Sezginer, A., Griffin, D.D. and Fukuhara, M.: 12. Klein, J.D., Martin, P.R., and Allen, D.F., 1997, The Petrophysics
“Novel NMR Apparatus for Investigating an External Sample,” of electrically anisotropic reservoirs, The Log Analyst, May-
Journal of Magnetic Resonance 97, No. 3 (1992), 466-485). June, pp.25-36.
5. McKeon, D., Cao Minh, C., Freedman, R., Harris, R., Willis, D., 13. Hizem M., Budan H., Devillé B., Faivre O., Mossé L., Simon
Davies, D., Gubelin, G., Oldigs, R., Hurlimann, M. : "An M. : Dielectric Dispersion: A New Wireline Petrophysical
Improved NMR Tool Design for Faster Logging", 1999, Measurement; 2008, SPE-116130, SPE Annual Technical
SPWLA Annual Logging Symposium, Oslo, Norway. Conference and Exhibition; Denver, Colorado.
6. DePavia, L., Ayers, D., Freedman, R., Harris, R., Heaton, N., 14. Allen, D.F.: “Laminated Sand Analysis”, 1984, SPWLA 25th
Jorion, B., Kovats, J., Luong, B., Rajan, N., Taherian, R., Annual Logging Symposium.
Walter, K., and Willis, D., "A Next Generation Wireline NMR 15. Tabanou, J.R., Cheung, P., Liu, C.B., Hansen, S., Lavigne, J.,
Logging Tool," presented at the 2003 SPE ATCE. Omeragic, D., Pickens, T., Borbas, T., Wendt, B. : "Thinly
7. van Popta, J., Hofstra, P., and van Houwelingen, S., 2004, An Laminated Reservoir Evaluation in Oil-Base Mud: High
Advanced Evaluation Method for Laminated Shaly Sands Resolution versus Bulk Anisotropy Measurement - a
Including Uncertainty and Sensitivity, SPWLA 45th Annual comprehensive evaluation", 2002, SPWLA 43th Annual
Logging Symposium. Logging Symposium.
6 SPE 134402

Mineralogy,
Porosity & Clay

Water Saturation &


Anisotropy Analysis
for Thin Bed Flag

Thick Bedded Thinly Bedded


Rv
Formations (resolved Formations (not resolved
by the standard logs) by the standard logs) ~ 2 ft
Rh

Homogeneous, Bimodal model


isotropic model applied applied depth-by-
depth-by-depth. depth.
Anisotropic Shale
~ 2 ft

Isotropic Sand
Analysis of
Irreducible water. Analysis of sand
Permeability & water properties.
cut

Figure 1: Flow chart of resistivity anisotropy analysis, with parallel paths for thick bedded and thin bedded formations.

Conventional Bimodal
Analysis Analysis

Merge

Reservoir
Summation

Figure 2: Flow chart of Merge analysis.


SPE 134402 7

Bimodal
Analysis
2
10 0.19

0.18

Increase of Swb, 0.17


Rv (ohm.m)

Phit Variability
Rv

1
10 0.13 0.14 0.15 0.16
Single Answer
0.11 Conventional
Analysis
0.10 0.12

Voil (v/v)
Voil
0.09
Minimum
MinimumRv Rv @ Rh
Rh
0
MaximumRv
Maximum Rv@@ Rh
Rh
10
0 1
10 10
Rh Rh
(ohm.m)
Figure 3: Typical results of the Rv/Rh inversion for the proposed petrophysical model of shaly sands. The applicability conditions of either Conventional
Analysis or Bimodal Analysis are illustrated.
8 SPE 134402

Upper

Middle

Lower

Figure 4: Resistivity and porosity inputs to Conventional Analysis and Bimodal analysis – example 1
• Track 1: Conventional volumetric analysis.
• Track 2 Sand Fraction (1 – Fsh) for use in Bimodal analysis.
• Track 3: Resistivities - horizontal resistivity (black) is used as Rt for saturation computation in conventional analysis, Sand resistivity (blue) from
bimodal analysis, Vertical resistivity (red) from inversion of multi-component resistivity anisotropy.
• Track 4: Thin bed flag. Regions of potential interest for Bimodal Analysis are cross-hatched and shaded orange.
• Track 5: Porosity curves - Total Porosity (black dashed) from the volumetric analysis, Effective Porosity (black) computed by conventional analysis,
porosity of the sand fraction (blue) from bimodal analysis.
SPE 134402 9

Zone Parameter Conventional Bimodal % Comments


Analysis Analysis change
Upper Net Pay 0 31.5 ft. n.a. Thin Beds detected.
Average sand 0 0.29 n.a. Bimodal Analysis preferred.
porosity Conventional analysis completely overlooks this
portion of the reservoir.
Hydrocarbons in 0 6.4 φ-ft n.a.
place
Permeability 0 35 darcy-ft. n.a.
thickness

Middle Net Pay 9.5 ft. 12.3 ft. 29% Thin Beds detected.
Average sand 0.29 0.34 Bimodal Analysis preferred.
porosity 17% Conventional analysis is pessimistic. Top of interva
computes high Sw.
Hydrocarbons in 1.7 f-ft. 3.4 φ-ft.
place 100%
Permeability 24 darcy-ft. 40 darcy-ft.
thickness 67%

Lower Net Pay 8.5 ft. 9.8 ft. 15% No thin beds detected.
Average sand 0.29 0.3 Bimodal Analysis over estimates hydrocarbons in
porosity 3% place & reservoir quality.
Conventional analysis provides accurate evaluation.
Hydrocarbons in 2.0 f-ft. 2.5 φ-ft.
place 25%
Permeability 5 darcy-ft. 15 darcy-ft.
thickness 200%

Table 1: Summations and averages from conventional analysis and bimodal analysis applied to example 1, in figure 4.

Cutoffs to Define Reservoir Quality Rock Cutoff to Define Pay


Vclay < 40% Sw < 50%
Porosity > 0.23
Permeability > 100 md.
Shale Fraction < 75%

Table 2: Cutoffs utilized in the analysis of example 1, yielding the results in Table 1.
10 SPE 134402

XX00

XX05

XX10

XX15

XX20

XX30

XX35

Figure 5: Conventional Analysis and Bimodal analysis results – example 2


• Track 1: Conventional volumetric analysis.
• Track 2: Thin bed flag. Regions of potential interest for Bimodal Analysis are cross hatched and shaded orange
• Track 3: Resistivities - Horizontal resistivity (black) is used as Rt for saturation computation in conventional analysis, Sand resistivity (blue) from
bimodal analysis.
• Track 4: Water saturation curves - Total water saturation (black) computed by conventional analysis, water saturation of the sand fraction (blue)
from bimodal analysis.
• Track 5: Wellbore image indicating fine scale layering in the interval where the thin bed detection flag is active.
• Track 6: Conductivity from a high resolution, high frequency pad tool, indicating fine scale layering in the interval where the thin bed detection flag
SPE 134402 11

XX95

XX00

XX05

XX10

XX15

XX20

XX30

Figure 6: Conventional and thin bed analysis from resistivity anisotropy and dielectric dispersion (scale 1:60 ft) – example 2
• Track-1: SP, caliper and computed matrix permittivity
• Track-2: Conventional Sw (black dashed), bimodal bulk anisotropy Sw (orange), dielectric shallow Sw (black)
• Track-3: Detailed mineralogical analysis and porosity
• Track-4: Depth and stand-off / mudcake thickness from resistivity (green), density (red) and dielectric dispersion (black)
• Track-5: Microresistivity (green), reconstructed microresistivity from dielectric conductivity (blue), 90 in. induction (red), vertical resistivity (orange
dashed), horizontal resistivity (blue dashed)
• Track-6: Total porosity (black), conventional water volume Vw (black dashed), bimodal bulk anisotropy Vw (orange), dielectric shallow Vw (blue)
• Track-7 & 8: Dielectric permittivity dispersion, dielectric conductivity dispersion
• Track-9: Borehole microresistivity image (dynamic normalization)
• Track-10: NMR T1 distribution (green), logarithmic mean (orange), and bound fluid cut-off (yellow)
12 SPE 134402

XX70 XX70

XX75 XX75

XX80 XX80

XX85 XX85

XX90 XX90

XX95 XX95

Figure 7: Conventional and thin bed analysis from resistivity anisotropy and dielectric dispersion (scale 1:40 ft) – example 3
• Track-1: Sand fraction from Rv/Rh contrast
• Track-2: Thin beds flag
• Track-3: Rh (blue), Rh shale (blue dashed), Rv (red), Rv shale (red dashed), Rsand (green)
• Track-4: SP, caliper and computed matrix permittivity
• Track-5: Conventional Sw (black dashed), bimodal bulk anisotropy Sw (orange), dielectric deep Sw (red dashed), dielectric shallow Sw (purple
dashed)
• Track-6: Detailed mineralogical analysis and porosity
• Track-7: Microresistivity (green), 90 in. induction (red), vertical resistivity (orange dashed), horizontal resistivity (blue dashed)
• Track-8: Borehole microresistivity image (dynamic normalization)
• Track-9: NMR T1 distribution (green), logarithmic mean (orange), and bound fluid cut-off (yellow)

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