Beginner's Guide To Petrophysics

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BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO PETROPHYSICS

This page is intended for people who have little experience in the oil and gas
industry who may be looking at a career path or a university specialty that
could lead to an interesting and rewarding life. Most of the material here is
covered in other Chapters of this website but a few of the basic concepts
have been gathered here to give an overview of the subject of petrophysics.
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.
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.
<== Microphotograph of a rock -- black colour is the porosity where
oil, gas, and water can be held inside the rock
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 ==>
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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 some 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.
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Green alternatives are 50 to 100 years away. Every green technology needs oil to make the required plastics and fuel
the manufacturing and delivery systems. The electricity grid is far too fragile to fuel extensive use of electric vehicles
anywhere, let alone everywhere. And where would all that electricity come from (coal?). Clean coal is more
oxymoronic than military intelligence. So if you and the other 7 Billion people on this planet want to live a
comfortable life, get used to oil and its risks. Staying in bed is risky too -- more people die in bed than anywhere else.
For the record, I've been off the grid with wind or solar since 1984. But I live in the middle of nowhere so the esthetics
don't bother the neighbours. What have you done to green-up this world?
BASIC PETROPHYSICS
"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 20 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.
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.
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 or drill pipe ==>
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.
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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.
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
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few other factors.

<== 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.
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 commont, but LOG/MATE was the first.
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Advertisements for my two major forays into the software business: LOG/MATE 1976 (left), 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?
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
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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
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
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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
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
How Do We Repair The Well?
BASIC VISUAL ANALYSIS OF WELL LOGS

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.
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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. Some of these are shown in the illustration.
See if you can figure out the logic behind each of the interpretations shown here before you move on to the more
formal rules.
The more detailed Crain's Rules are described here with reference to the logs shown below.
Crains Rule Minus 1: Identify log curves available, and determine their scales.
The left half of this image shows a resistivity log with spontaneous potential (SP) in Track 1 and shallow, medium,
and deep resistivity (RESS, RESM, RESD) on a logarithmic track to the right of the depth track. The right half of the
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image shows a density neutron log with gamma ray (GR) and caliper (CAL) in Track 1. Photo electric effect (PE) is in
Track 2 with neutron porosity (PHIN) and density porosity (PHID) spread across Tracks 2 and 3.
Crains Rule #0: Gamma ray or SP deflections to the left indicate cleaner sands, deflections to the right are shaly.
Draw clean and shale lines, then interpolate linearly between clean and shale lines to visually estimate Shale
Volume (Vsh).
To find clean zones versus shale zones, examine the spontaneous potential (SP) response, gamma ray (GR)
response, and density neutron separation. Low values of GR, highly negative values of SP, or density neutron curves
falling close to each other usually indicate low shale volume. High GR values, no SP deflection, or large separation
on density neutron curves normally indicate high shale volume.
Very shaly beds are not Zones of Interest. Everything else, including very shaly sands (Vsh < 0.50) and even
obvious water zones, are interesting. Although a zone may be water bearing, it is still a useful source of log analysis
information, and is still a zone of interest at this stage.
Crains Rule #1: The average of density and neutron porosity in a clean zone (regardless of mineralogy) is a good
first estimate for Effective Porosity (PHIe).
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Crains Rule #2: The density porosity in a shaly sand is a good first estimate for Effective Porosity (PHIe),
provided logs are on Sandstone Units.
For zones of interest, draw bed boundaries (horizontal lines). Then review the porosity logs: sonic, density, and
neutron. All porosity logs deflect to the left for increased porosity. If density neutron data is available, estimate
porosity in clean sands by averaging the two log values. In shaly sands, read the density porosity. IMPORTANT: This
is just an estimate and not a final answer.
Scale the sonic log based on the assumed matrix lithology. Mark coal and salt beds, which appear to have very high
apparent porosity. Identify zones which show high medium, low, or no porosity. Low porosity, high shale content,
coal, and salt beds are no longer interesting.
Crains Rule #3: Tracking of porosity with resistivity on an overlay usually indicates water or shale.
OR
Low resistivity with moderate to high porosity usually indicates water or shale.
Crains Rule #4: Crossover of porosity on a resistivity log overlay usually indicates hydrocarbons.
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OR
High resistivity with moderate to high porosity usually indicates hydrocarbons.
Raw logs showing resistivity porosity overlay. Red shading indicates possible hydrocarbon zones. The density or
density porosity (solid red curve) is placed on top of the deep resistivity curve (dashed red curve). Line up the two
curves so that they lie on top of each other in obvious water zones. If there are no obvious water zones, line them up
in the shale zones. If the porosity curve falls to the LEFT of the resistivity curve, as in Layers A and B, hydrocarbons
are probably present.
To find hydrocarbon indications and obvious water zones, compare deep resistivity to porosity, by mentally or
physically overlaying the density porosity on top of the resistivity log. High porosity (deflections on the density log to
the left) and high resistivity (deflections to the right) usually indicate oil or gas, or fresh water. See red shaded area
on resistivity track on the log above.
Layer A above is a shaly sand and has medium porosity. Layers B and C are clean sands and have high porosity. All
other layers are shale with no useful porosity.
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The average of density and neutron porosity in Layers B is 24 %; Layer C is 19%. This is close to the final answer
because there is not much shale in these zones. The average in Layer A is 16 % - much higher than the truth due to
the influence of the shale in the zone. The density porosity is about 11%, pretty close to the core data. Therefore all
our analysis must make use of shale correction methods.
Low resistivity and high porosity usually means water, as in Layer C. Known DST, production, or mud log indications
of oil or gas are helpful indicators.
Layer B and Layer A show crossover when the porosity is traced on the resistivity log, so these zones remain
interesting. In fresher water formations, it is often difficult or impossible to spot hydrocarbons visually. If it was easy,
log analysts would be out of work!
Crossover on the density neutron log sometimes means gas (not seen on the above example). Watch for rough hole
problems, sandstone recorded on a limestone scale, or limestone recorded on a dolomite scale, which can also show
crossover not caused by gas.
Water zones with high porosity and low resistivity are called obvious water zones. Fresh water may look like
hydrocarbons, particularly in shallow zones. The lack of SP development will often help distinguish fresh water
zones. Low porosity water zones may not be obvious.
Crains Rule #5: Approximate Water Saturation (SWa) in an obvious hydrocarbon zone is estimated from: SWa =
Constant / PHIe / (1 - Vsh)
where Constant is in the range from 0.0100 to 0.1200.
Use 0.0400 as a first try in sands, 0.0600 to 0.0800 in shaly sands, and 0.0250 in intercrystalline carbonates.
Water saturation is usually calculated from the Archie equation or a shale corrected version of it. This is not easy to
do with mental arithmetic. An easier estimate of water saturation can be made in obvious hydrocarbon zones by
using a method attributed to Buckles, and it is commonly used by reservoir engineers in a hurry.
Here is the computer output from the
data in the logs used in the visual
analysis shown above. ==>
This depth plot is typical of a straight
forward petrophysical analysis. Some
raw data curves are presented because
most people find them helpful in
correlating the zones of interest. From
left to right are gamma ray (GR),
spontaneous potential (SP), then three
different resistivity curves (RESD, RESM,
RESS) with the depth numbers in
between them and the GR / SP track.
Next come some answers, from left to
right, water saturation (SW), porosity
(PHIe), permeability (Perm), and the
mineral breakdown on the right. This
latter track shows only shale and quartz
in this example.
The solid red shading in the porosity
track is the oil in the porosity. More red
is good news. The white area to the right
of the oil is the water volume in the
reservoir.
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Using the curve colour codes and scales

at the top of the log, you can identify
each curve and read values for the
answers. For example the upper oil zone
has about 10% porosity, 40% water
saturation. The zone is 50-60% shale
with the balance being quartz.
The lower oil zone has 24% porosity,
17% water saturation, nearly zero shale.
The white area underneath the red,
indicates a watrer zone under the oil
zone.
Coloured dots represent lab analysis
data for [orosity and permeability. The
close agreement with the log analysis
means we did a good job. This may have
taken a few iterations to get all the
parameters just right.
MORE ADVANCED STUFF: There are

many more rules of thumb, some
universal, some more local, that are
used in visual log analysis. These are
covered elsewhere in this Handbook. All
of them have been quantified by using
equations that relate log readjngs and parameters selected by the analyst to obtain reasonably accurate quantitative
answers, provided there is some "ground truth" such as core analysis data, production history, sample descriptions,
etc, to give us some comfort that the answers really are reasonable.
RAM. IBM didn't "invent" the PC until 1981.
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E. R. (Ross) Crain, P.Eng.
02/07/2015 20:37

Beginner's Guide To Petrophysics

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