GROUP MEMBERS

M.USMAN SHAUKAT 2014-PET-06

HAFIZ HAMZA SALEEM 2014-PET-17
MUMTAZ ALI 2014-PET-45
SANAULLAH 2014-PET-46
HAMZA ALI KHAN 2014-PET-27
WAQAS AHMED 2014-PET-37

GAMMA RAY LOGGING

WELL LOGGING

A detailed introduction to gamma ray logging and its

interpretations.

Group 5
16-Dec-16
Contents
Well Logging .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Principle .................................................................................................................................................... 2
Importance................................................................................................................................................ 2
Types of logging tools ............................................................................................................................... 2
Gamma Ray Logging.................................................................................................................................. 3
Gamma Ray tool........................................................................................................................................ 3
Working principle of tool .......................................................................................................................... 4
Spectral Gamma ray tool .......................................................................................................................... 8
Applications and advantages of SGR logs ................................................................................................. 9
Factors effecting Gamma ray readings ................................................................................................... 13

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 Well Logging
Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record (a well
log) of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual
inspection of samples brought to the surface (geological logs) or on physical measurements made
by instruments lowered into the borehole (geophysical logs).

Principle
Wire line logging is performed by lowering a 'logging tool' - or a string of one or more
instruments - on the end of a wire line into an oil well (or borehole) and recording petro physical
properties using a variety of sensors. Logging tools developed over the years measure the natural
gamma ray, electrical, acoustic, stimulated radioactive responses, electromagnetic, nuclear
magnetic resonance, pressure and other properties of the rocks and their contained fluids.

Importance
Logging data is used to identify productive zones, to determine depth and thickness of zones, to
distinguish between oil, gas, or water in a reservoir, and to estimate hydrocarbon reserves. Also,
geologic maps developed from log interpretation help in determining facies relationships and
drilling locations.

Types of Logging Tools

Logging tools can be classified on the basis of their principle of working or on their basic
measurements. Their general classification is given below:

Lithology Logs

 Self /Spontaneous Potential (SP) Logs

 Gamma Ray Logs

Porosity Logs

 Density Logs
 Sonic Logs
 Neutron Logs

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Electrical Logs

 Resistivity Logs
 Borehole Imaging

Miscellaneous Logs

 Caliper Logs
 NMR Logs

Gamma Ray Logging

Gamma Ray (GR) logs are the logs that measure the natural radioactivity in the formations.
Hence, they are helpful in distinguishing between sands and shale.

Gamma Ray Tool

A Gamma Ray tool measures naturally occurring gamma rays in formations adjacent to the
wellbore. This nuclear measurement indicates the radioactive content of the formations. These
counts are made by the detectors on the gamma ray tool.

Figure 1: Gamma Ray Tool

The response of the normal gamma ray log is made up of the combined radiation from uranium,
thorium, potassium, and a number of associated daughter products of radioactive decay. Because
these different radioactive elements emit gamma rays at different energy levels, the radiation
contributed by each element can be analyzed separately. Potassium (potassium 40) has a single
energy of 1.46 MeV (million electron volts).

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Thorium and uranium series emit radiation at various energies; however, they have prominent
energies at 2.614 MeV and 1.764 MeV respectively.

The gamma ray log is usually displayed in the left track (track 1) of a standard log display,
commonly with a caliper curve. Tracks 2 and 3 usually contain porosity or resistivity curves.
Following log is a general example of gamma ray log.

Figure 2: Gamma Ray Log

Working Principle of Tool

Traditionally two types of gamma ray detectors have been used in the logging industry: Geiger
Muller and scintillation detectors. Today, practically all gamma ray tools use scintillation
detectors containing a sodium iodide crystal. When a gamma ray strikes the crystal, a single
photon of light is emitted. This tiny flash of light then strikes the photocathode made of cesium
antimony or silver-magnesium. Each photon, when it hits the photocathode releases a bundle of
electrons. These in turn are accelerated in an electric field to strike another electrode producing
an even bigger shower of electrons.

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This process is repeated through a number of stages until a final electrode conducts a small
current through a measurement resistor to give a voltage pulse that signals that a gamma ray has
struck the sodium iodide crystal. The system has a very short “deadtime” and can register many
counts per second without being swamped by a large number of signals.

Figure 3: Scintillation counter

Operational Constraints

A gamma ray tool is run centered in open hole and e-centered in cased holes. As radiations can
pass through anything so gamma ray can be run in oil based as well as water based mud.

Figure 4 : Gamma ray logging tool

Working Principle of Gamma Ray

The working principle of gamma ray is based on the counts of radiations coming from formation.
As we know that sandstones are usually non-radioactive and hence give low gamma ray reading
whereas shale is highly radioactive as it contains potassium isotopes in them as well as adsorbed
uranium and thorium is also present so it gives high gamma ray reading. As the gamma ray
response increases the shale content increases.

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 Figure 5: Gamma ray indicating shale and sandstone

Exceptions to General Trend

However, there are exceptions to this trend as well. For example, clean sandstone (i.e., with low
shale content) might also produce a high gamma ray response if the sandstone contains
potassium feldspars, micas, glauconite, or uranium-rich waters as these materials are also
radioactive in nature. If a zone has a high potassium content coupled with a high gamma ray log
response, the zone might not be shale. Instead, it could be a feldspathic, glauconitic, or
micaceous sandstone So, in zones where the geologist is aware of the presence of potassium
feldspars, micas, or glauconite, a spectral gamma ray log can be run in place of the standard the
gamma ray log. The explanation of spectral gamma ray(SGR) logging tool will be given later.

Calculating Vshale

1. Determine the GRlog (Reading of Formation), GRmax (Maximum Gamma Ray Reading;
shale) and GRmin (Minimum Gamma Ray Reading; Clean Sand) readings from a gamma
ray log.
2. Calculate “t”.
For Open Hole:

t  0.1522Wmud d h  d tool 

For Cased Hole:

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3. Calculate correction factors for open hole sections or cased hole sections accordingly.
4. Calculate corrected GR values for open hole and cased hole sections.
5. Calculate IGR using corrected GR values and formula given below.

6. Finally calculate Vsh by applying different formulas.

Figure 6: GR Log Example

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Spectral Gamma Ray Tool
The latest variant on the gamma ray log is the spectral gamma ray log. This tool is usually run in
the zones where subsequent amounts of potassium, feldspars, micas and other such minerals are
present in the sandstone reservoir. The spectral gamma ray log records not only the number of
gamma rays emitted by the formation but also the energy of each, and processes that information
into curves representative of the amounts of thorium (Th), potassium (K), and uranium(U)
present in the formation. A spectral gamma ray tool gives following five curves:

K-Curve

This curve gives the concentration of the radioactive potassium in the zone of interest.

U-Curve

This curve gives the concentration of the radioactive uranium(2 isotopes i.e,U235 and U238 ) in the
zone of interest.

Th-Curve

This curve gives the concentration of the radioactive thorium in the zone of interest.

SGR-Curve

This curve gives the concentration of the radioactive potassium, thorium and uranium in the
zone of interest.

CGR-Curve

This curve gives the concentration of the radioactive potassium and thorium (excluding uranium)
in the zone of interest.

An energy sensor window is used to achieve this result. Uranium is excluded in the last curve
because uranium salts are soluble and can be transported as well as precipitated in the formation
after deposition. This last curve is called CGR curve. A spectral gamma ray log reading is shown
below.

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Applications & Advantages of SGR Logs

Gamma ray tools have very vast advantages some of which are discussed below:

Estimation of shale volumes

As shale is usually more radioactive than sand or carbonate, gamma ray logs can be used to
calculate volume of shale in porous reservoirs. The volume of shale expressed as a decimal
fraction or percentage is called Vshale.

Calculation of the gamma ray index is the first step needed to determine the volume of shale
from a gamma ray log:
GRlog  GRmin
I GR 
GRmax  GRmin
Where:

IGR = gamma ray index

GRlog = gamma ray reading of formation
GRmin = minimum gamma ray (clean sand or carbonate)
GRmax = maximum gamma ray (shale)

The gamma ray log has several nonlinear empirical responses, as well as a linear response. The
nonlinear responses are based on geographic area or formation age, or if enough other
information is available, chosen to fit local information. For a first- order estimation of shale
volume, the linear response, where Vshale = IGR is used.

Compared to the linear response, all nonlinear relationships are more optimistic; that is, they
produce a shale volume value lower than that from the linear equation. The non-linear responses
in the increasing order of their optimism are:

 Larionov for Tertiary rocks:


Vshale  0.083 23.7 IGR 1 

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  Steiber
I GR
Vsh 
3  2 I GR
 Clavier


Vsh  1.7  3.38  I GR  0.7 
2 0.5

 Larionov for older rocks

Vsh  0.33* 22.0 I GR  1 

Figure 7: Shale Volumes

All the above relations are empirical. The choice of which to use depends on the user and other
related information which may be available. If no other information is available, then linear
relationship is probably the best choice. Although it predicts the most clay volume for a given
gamma ray response whereas the nonlinear relation gives the lesser clay volume.

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Correlation of Formation
Curves are scanned for similarities in shapes and magnitude. Gamma-ray log fluctuates with
changes in formation mineralogy. As such, gamma-ray logs from different wells within the same
field or region can be very useful for correlation purposes, because similar formations show
similar features. Moreover, we can relate the presence of different/similar formations at different
depths for different wells.

Figure 8: Correlation of formations

Differentiating Radioactive Reservoirs from Shale

Gamma ray tool can be used to differentiate radioactive reservoirs also called as hot reservoirs
from shales in a sense that hot reservoirs contain low concentrations of thorium and high
concentrations of uranium whereas in shales its concentration is reverse. So in this way we can
differentiate shales from radioactive reservoirs.

Gross Lithology
Gamma ray log character is one of the primary methods used to correlate the stratigraphic
section. For most engineering and geophysical applications, the gamma ray log is primarily used
to extract lithologic, mineralogical, or fabric estimates.
In general reservoir are less radioactive than shale however some sandstone and dolomite can be
radioactive.

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Source Rock Evaluation
Uranium by itself may indicate a high organic carbon content that is indicative of high total
organic carbon(TOC) associated with source rocks as uranium compounds are generally found
with the hydrocarbons underground.

Clay typing
The method involves plotting the potassium responses against those of thorium which will give
some indication of the type of clay present in the formation. The uranium free curve is often a
better shaliness indicator than the total gamma ray curve, because it can distinguish the gamma
rays counted from potassium and thorium in clays and the gamma rays resulting from Uranium
which are not associated with clays

The following thorium potassium cross plot is used to identify relative percentage of different
minerals.

Figure 9: Thorium Potassium cross plot

Fracture Identification

Spikes to high value of Uranium may indicate fracture due to the deposition of soluble Uranium
compound in the fracture during reservoir fluid movement.
The limitation of this technique is that it cannot distinguish closed fractures from open fractures.

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Qualitative Indication of Permeability

The existence of mud cake when the borehole diameter is less than bit size is an indication of the
infiltration of mud into formation. Because of differences in mud type, density and other
parameters the magnitude of permeability cannot be determined. Mud cake is usually noted as a
comparison of bit size. When the hole is washed out the presence of mud cake can be masked by
the washout.

Log Quality Control

Indications from the calipers that the hole is rough is a warning that measurements which are
from tools pressed against the bore hole wall, such as density, neutron and the microresistivty
curves may be not reliable.

Factors Effecting Gamma Ray Readings

Sonde position in the hole

Sonde position in the hole affects the gamma ray reading. When it is run centered in the open
hole it will affect the count rate, which will subsequently generate errors in the gamma ray
reading.

Hole Size

For larger holes, we will have to reduce the speed of the gamma ray reading as the radiation will
take more time in covering the large radius of the open hole.

Mud weight/ Barite

If the mud used in the hole is of high density or the concentration of the barite is more then the
gamma ray coming from the formation will get hindered and absorbed.

Casing Size and Cement Thickness

The gamma ray log run in the cased hole will show a very weak response as some of the gamma
ray radiations will get absorbed by the cement behind casing and hindered by the casing itself.

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Mud Type

KCl mud increases potassium count rates in spectral tools whereas barite muds affect all count
rates.

Logging Speed

In older rocks, logging speed may cause some variation in the response, with logs acquired at a
faster speed having somewhat less definition and activity than those acquired at lower speeds.

Review

 Gamma ray is a universal log & it is run in all the environments under which
other logs lag
 Gamma ray is run both in cased & open holes
 It helps to give qualitative as well quantitative analysis of shale
 It also gives indirectly the shale volume
 Gamma ray is best lithology indicator, in this way it indicates the clean
sandstone zone for calculation of Rw
 Spectral gamma ray identifies the radioactive reservoirs , differentiating
them from shale& the radioactive isotopes in accordance to their energy
windows
 Spectral gamma ray also tells about the clay typing , shale mineralogy
changes vs. depth & fracture identification
 Gamma ray readings are affected by a number of factors making the reading
full of errors
 Usually, time constant & logging speed are synchronized to each other to
give the best results.
 Gamma ray reading is also used in coring depth confirmation & perforation
in the casing.
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