--> Integrated Interpretation of Borehole Images to Characterize the Pore Space and Permeability in Carbonate Reservoirs: Case Studies from Indonesia and USA, Chitale, Vivek D.; Quirein, John; Iyer, Shrinivasan; Roy, Ananda; Sutiyono, Sigit, #90100 (2009)

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Integrated Interpretation of Borehole Images to Characterize the Pore Space and Permeability in Carbonate Reservoirs: Case Studies from Indonesia and USA

Chitale, Vivek D.1
 Quirein, John1
 Iyer, Shrinivasan1
 
Roy, Ananda1
 Sutiyono, Sigit1

1WPS, Halliburton, Houston, TX.

Successful management of carbonate reservoirs requires clear identification and description of changes in facies, porosity and permeability. While the coring and core analysis are ideal for the purpose, they are too expensive to be used routinely. Electrical borehole images combined with a full suite of the open hole logs, offer powerful means of characterizing facies and pore space. Advanced image interpretation techniques (Chitale et al, 2004 and 2008; Xu et al, 2005) were developed recently to partition- and quantify the pore space in carbonates into micro-, primary interparticle- and secondary porosity. This paper introduces a further advanced interpretation technique that integrates NMR and quad combo logs together with the borehole images to evaluate the pore space in the carbonate reservoirs.

The new interpretation technique first calibrates image with the density-neutron cross plot porosity to create a porosity image. Histogram thresholding is then used to diagnose primary-, secondary- and micro porosity fractions constrained by NMR and sonic logs. Image-derived total porosity and the porosity fractions are used together with the definition of rock types to estimate permeability in accordance with the Jennings-Lucia model (
Jennings and Lucia, 2003). Rock types are obtained either from core analysis or the new technique estimates them by combining PE with other logs.

This paper reports case history of successful application of new interpretation technique in the development wells drilled in the
Permian Basin of US and Indonesia. Advantages of evaluating the productive facies of carbonate reservoirs in the manner described above include diagnosing streaks of high permeability or the permeability barriers, and the ability afforded to the geologist or petrophysicist to find the exact correlation between the depositional facies versus oil and gas flow units.


AAPG Search and Discover Article #90100©2009 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition 15-18 November 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil