Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

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Petroleum
journal homepage: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/petlm

Prediction of permeability from well logs using a new hybrid machine

learning algorithm
Morteza Matinkia a, Romina Hashami b, Mohammad Mehrad c, *,
Mohammad Reza Hajsaeedi c, Arian Velayati d
a
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Omidiyeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Omidiyeh, Iran
b
Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
c
Faculty of Mining, Petroleum and Geophysics Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran
d
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Permeability is a measure of fluid transmissibility in the rock and is a crucial concept in the evaluation of
Received 1 October 2021 formations and the production of hydrocarbon from the reservoirs. Various techniques such as intelligent
Received in revised form methods have been introduced to estimate the permeability from other petrophysical features. The ef-
15 December 2021
ficiency and convergence issues associated with artificial neural networks have motivated researchers to
Accepted 14 March 2022
use hybrid techniques for the optimization of the networks, where the artificial neural network is
combined with heuristic algorithms.
Keywords:
This research combines social ski-driver (SSD) algorithm with the multilayer perception (MLP) neural
Permeability
Artificial neural network
network and presents a new hybrid algorithm to predict the value of rock permeability. The performance
Multilayer perceptron of this novel technique is compared with two previously used hybrid methods (genetic algorithm-MLP
Social ski driver algorithm and particle swarm optimization-MLP) to examine the effectiveness of these hybrid methods in pre-
dicting the permeability of the rock.
The results indicate that the hybrid models can predict rock permeability with excellent accuracy.
MLP-SSD method yields the highest coefficient of determination (0.9928) among all other methods in
predicting the permeability values of the test data set, followed by MLP-PSO and MLP-GA, respectively.
However, the MLP-GA converged faster than the other two methods and is computationally less
expensive.
© 2022 Southwest Petroleum University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi
Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction production data, and seismic information [1]. Various empirical

Accurate estimation of the petrophysical properties such as
permeability, porosity, water saturation, density, and lithology is of
utmost importance in the evaluation of the hydrocarbon reservoirs.
Such characterization is primarily based on the measurements
obtained by well logs, core sample testing, well testing, field
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mmehrad1986@gmail.com (M. Mehrad).
Peer review under responsibility of Southwest Petroleum University.
Production and Hosting by Elsevier on behalf of KeAi
correlations have been presented for the estimation of petrophys-
ical data from the well log measurements. However, these corre-
lations are often limited to a single well only and may not apply to
other wells even if the geological features of the wells are relatively
similar [2]. Hence, the problem with the correlations developed
using regression techniques appears to be the non-uniqueness of
the equations which arises from introducing insufficient parame-
ters into the models.
Permeability is a petrophysical property of the rock that repre-
sents the displacement of the fluids in the porous media. This is an
essential parameter for reservoir evaluation, management, and
selecting the optimum enhanced oil recovery method. Permeability
is generally measured either by coring from the formations or
downhole pressure testing methods. The coring test results are
“local” and belong to a minute section of the reservoir. Downhole

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petlm.2022.03.003
2405-6561/© 2022 Southwest Petroleum University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

Abbreviations MIMO Multiple-inputs multiple-outputs

MISO Multiple-inputs single-output
AARD Average absolute relative deviation MRA Multivariate regression analysis
AC Acoustic log MSE Mean square error
AI Artificial intelligence MSFL Micro-spherical focused log
ANFIS Artificial neuro-fuzzy interference system NMR Nuclear magnetic resonance
ANN Artificial neural network NPHI Neutron-porosity log
Cal Caliper log PEF Photoelectric factor
CNL Compensated neutron porosity log PHID Density-porosity log
CT Conductivity log PHIE Effective porosity
DEN Formation Density log PHIT Total porosity
DRHO Density Correction Log PSO Particle swarm optimization
FFBP Feed-forward back-propagation RHOB Deep density log
FL Fuzzy logic RL Resistivity log
FZI or FZI* Flow zone Indicator RLA1 Apparent resistivity focusing mode 1
GA Genetic algorithm RLA5 Apparent resistivity focusing mode 5
GMDH Group method of data handling RMSE Root MSE
GR Gamma ray RT True resistivity
HGAPSO Hybrid GA and PSO RVR Relevance vector regression
IQR Inter quartile range SFL Spherically focused log
K Permeability SP Spontaneous potential
LLD Deep laterolog SVM Support vector machine
LLS Shallow laterolog TNPH Thermal neutron Porosity
LSSVM Least square support vector machine XGBoost Extreme gradient boosting regression model

pressure tests account for the anisotropic nature of the formation
but yield in a single value. These techniques are costly and time-
consuming [3].
Extrapolating values from insufficient permeability measure-
ments can be erroneous due to the high uncertainty associated with
the “local” nature of these techniques. Moreover, such measure-
ments are not always available. Therefore, researchers have
attempted to correlate the permeability to the other petrophysical
properties obtained from the well logs [4]. Measurements from
coring are always used for calibrating the predicted results.
Kozeny [5] and Carman [6] developed the first correlation (KC
correlation) of this type, in which permeability is correlated to the
formation porosity. Later on, modifications to the KC correlation
were presented by other researchers [7,8]. The application of such
equations is essentially limited to unconsolidated homogeneous
sands due to the assumptions used in developing the analytical
correlations.
Most of the presented equations have limited application due to
the existing heterogeneity of the reservoirs. The findings clarify
that permeability cannot be simply correlated to the porosity only
and many other factors involved must be incorporated into the
correlation. Such includes more petrophysical parameters such as
radioactive, electrical, and sonic properties which can resolve the
non-uniqueness problem of such correlations.
Advanced methods and intelligent techniques have been proposed
to address the issue of the non-uniqueness of the presented correla-
tions. For instance, Multivariate Regression Analysis (MRA) method
was applied to address the models' generalization problem [9].
Moreover, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) method has been used
and gained popularity recently as an alternative to the MRA and the
results obtained from the utilization of this intelligent method have
been reported to be positive [10,11]. Other approaches such as fractals
and multifractal theory, statistical approaches, and methods based on
percolation theory have been used extensively and successfully in the
estimation of the petrophysical properties [3]. Furthermore, intelli-
gent methods can be employed to deal with the problem of the spatial
distribution of the properties in the formation [12].
Hybrid artificial intelligence-optimization algorithms have been
utilized for the prediction of reservoir petrophysical properties.
Evolutionary optimization methods are often used to achieve the
optimum network structure and improve the convergence and ef-
ficiency of the network. Many studies of this type are available in
the literature, where the petrophysical properties of formations are
estimated from the well logs [13e16].
Mulashani et al. [17] applied enhanced group method of data
handling (GMDH) which uses modified Levenberg-Marquardt (LM)
to predict permeability from well logs. Otchere et al. [18] used
extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) regression model to estimate
reservoir permeability and water saturation. Zhang et al. [19]
combined petrophysical rock typing method (FZI or FZI*) with PSO-
SVM algorithm to predict permeability and porosity from GR, DEN,
and DT. Nkurlu et al. [20] estimated permeability from well logs by
using GMDH neural network. Okon et al. [21] developed a feed-
forward back-propagation (FFBP) artificial neural network (ANN)
model with multiple input multiple out (MIMO) structure. Ade-
niran et al. (2019) introduced a novel competitive ensemble ma-
chine learning model for permeability prediction in heterogeneous
reservoirs. Ahmadi and Ebadi [22] used the optimized least square
support vector machine (LSSVM) and fuzzy logic (FL) to estimate
the Porosity and Permeability of petroleum reservoir. Ali and
Chawathe [23], studied the relationship between petrographic data
collected during thin section analysis with permeability using the
artificial neural network (ANN). Chen and Lin [24] used an
ensemble-based committed machine with empirical formulas
(CMEF) to estimate permeability. Gholami et al. [25] used relevance
vector regression (RVR) along with genetic algorithm (GA) as an
optimizer to predict permeability from well logs. Jamialahmadi and
Javadpour [26] utilized RBF to identify the relationship between
porosity and permeability. Verma et al. [27], studied five well log
Alberta Deep Basin and used ANN to predict porosity and perme-
ability. Handhel [28] predicted the Horizontal and vertical perme-
ability by backpropagation algorithm from 5 different well logs.
Elkatatny et al. [29] developed an ANN with three well logs to
predict permeability in heterogeneous reservoirs. In Table 1, the

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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

previously used machine algorithms and input parameters for the
prediction of permeability are presented.
In this paper, a hybrid MLP-SSD algorithm was designed and
employed to estimate the permeability of the formations from the
well logs. Social Ski-driver (SSD) is categorized as an evolutionary
optimization algorithm (EA) that improves the classification per-
formance, resolving the challenge of imbalanced data associated
with robust classification modeling. This algorithm was recently
introduced by Tharwat and Gabel [31] and is inspired by different
evolutionary algorithms such as PSO, sine cosine algorithm (SCA),
and gray wolf optimization (GWO), and its stochastic nature re-
sembles alpine skiing paths. The hybridization of MLP and SSD
improves the efficiency of the computations. As shown in Table 1,
the proposed hybrid algorithm has not been used previously to
predict the permeability of the rock. The performance of this hybrid
model was compared to MLP-PSO,MLP-GA, and MLP models, and it
was found that the MLP-SSD algorithm is superior in terms of
model accuracy.
In section 2, the methodology and workflow of the research are
described. In section 3, the type and statistics of the collected data
are presented and section 4 contains the results and discussions on
the quality of input data, algorithm training, and the performance
of algorithms with the unseen data sets. The conclusions of the
study and the description of the advantages and limitations of the
introduced model are given in section 5.
Fig. 1 shows the workflow used in this study to extract the
permeability index from the FMI graph and its calibration with the
results of the permeability test, as well as modeling the perme-
ability using conventional petrophysical graphs. No core sample
was taken from the target depth (Fahlian Formation) and the
permeability ðKFMI ) of the FMI output should be corrected for
changes in water saturation (Sw ). Equation (1) was used for this
purpose and the constant (n) in the correlation was determined for
Fahlian Formation using FMI graphs and permeability laboratory
tests on samples from two other neighboring wells.


n
1
Sw
Kcorr ¼ KFMI  10 (1)
To model permeability in this study, data preprocessing is first
performed to detect and remove outlier data, and select more
features that influence permeability. The Tukey method, which is a
statistical method based on box plot diagrams of data, was used to
detect and remove outlier data [32]. Moreover, feature selection
was performed by applying the neighborhood component analysis
(NCA) algorithm to the database without outliers. In the next step,
the selected features were considered as input to the MLP-GA, MLP-
PSO, and MLP-SSD hybrid algorithms. After training the hybrid
models with 80% of the selected data, the trained models were
tested with the rest of the data.

2. Methodology 2.1. Pre-processing

Sampling from wells to perform tests related to determining
rock permeability is very time-consuming and costly. Besides,
sampling along the entire length of the well for permeability
testing is not possible; Therefore, the output of these studies will be
discontinuous rock permeability data. Using this method for car-
bonate reservoirs that have high heterogeneity will not yield
acceptable results. Thus, using other tools such as formation micro-
imager (FMI) or formation micro scanner (FMS) to estimate the
permeability of carbonate reservoirs, in addition to reducing time
and cost, will provide continuous data. The use of permeability test
results on core samples is vital to calibrate the values of the FMI/
FMS permeability index in this method; to achieve highly accurate
and reliable results.
Data processing is essential for the correct extraction of the
governing relationships between inputs and outputs. Applying data
preprocessing results in a model with high accuracy and general-
izability. Identifying and deleting outlier data and feature selection
are two processes that were performed on raw data in this study in
the preprocessing stage.
2.1.1. Outlier detection and elimination
Actual data is affected by numerous factors, among which noise
is a key factor, leading to inaccurate extraction of the rules gov-
erning the data and thus results in the low generalizability of
estimator or class models. Exposure to noisy data can be classified
into two categories: identifying and deleting remote data and

Table 1
Application of machine learning algorithms in the literature review of permeability prediction.

Number Authors Algorithms Number of input Inputs

variables

1 Mulashani et al. [17] GMDH, LM 4 TNPH, SGR, VSH, PHIE, RHOZ

2 Otchere et al. [18]
3 Zhang et al. [19]
4 Nkurlu et al. [20]
5 Okon et al. [21]
6 Adeniran et al. [30]
7 Elkatatny et al. [29]
8 Nasseri, A. and
Mohammadzadeh, M.J [13]. PNN Network
9 Ahmadi and Ebadi [22]
10 Gholami et al. [25]
11 Verma et al. [27]
12 Ahmadi et al. [14]
13 Sfidari et al. [16]
14 Handhel [28]
15 Chen and Lin [24]
16 Ali and Chawathe [23]
17 Jamialahmadi and
Javadpour [26]
XGBoost 12 CALI, DRHO, DT, GR, NPHI, PEF, RACHEM, RACELM, RD, RHOB, ROP, RT
PSO-SVM 3 GR, DEN, DT
GMDH 6 RHOZ, RLA1, RLA5, SGR, TNPH, VSH
ANN, FFBP 4 GR, True RT, RHOB, Depth interval logs
SVMR, ANN, ANFIS, MSVMR 11 MSFL, NPHI, PHIT, RHOB, SWT, CALI, CT, DRHO, GR, RT, K
(KNN), MSVMR (NCC)
ANN, ANFIS, SVM, BPNN 4 Mobility index, NPHI, RHOB, Core permeability
SOM Network, PCAN Network, 9 NPHI, RHOB, DT, CGR, ILD, ILM, URAN. THOR, POTA
GA, FIS, LSSVM 4 DT, RHOB, PHIT, NPHI
RVR, GA 7 GR, DT, RHOB, NPHI, LLD, PEF and MSFL logs
ANN 5 GR, RHOB, Deep resistivity, NPHI, RHOB, NPHI
ANN, HGAPSO-ANN 5 K, CT, DT, NPHI, GR, RHOB
SOM 5 DT, GR, NPHI, PEF, RHOB
MLP, BP 5 GR, RHOB, DT, NPHI, Deep induction log
CMEF 5 Core Permeability, NPHI, RT, irreducible Water saturation
ANN 10 Sec. Intergranular porosity, Total Sec. Por., Total Por, Quartz, Feldespar,
Dolomite, Anhydrite, Micro Por, Clay, Rock Frag.
RBF 2 Porosity, Permeability

110
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al.
Fig. 1. The workflow for permeability modeling of the target well. The blue box on the right is a process performed to determine the constant in Equation (1) using the permeability
data of the core and the FMI log in two wells from the study field in the Fahlian Formation. The red box on the left represents the process used to determine permeability and model
it in the well under study. The data used in this study (ie, conventional good wells and permeability graphs normalized using Equation (1)) are marked in blue.
reducing the effect of noise. Since the outlier data have unusual
values compared to other observations (i.e. they deviate from
other observations), they can be identified by both univariate and
multivariate methods. In the univariate method, the data distri-
bution of one property is examined alone, while in the multivar-
iate method, several properties in multidimensional space must be
examined to identify remote data. In the noise reduction method,
a filter is used to reduce the effect of noise in the data, the in-
tensity of which is proportional to the signal-to-noise ratio in the
data. In this method, unlike the first method, the number of data is
not reduced, but its values are changed according to the noise
intensity.
Due to the uncertainty of the signal-to-noise ratio in the data
received for this study, the Tukey method will be used to identify
and delete outlier data. In this method, by calculating the values of
the first quarter (Q1 ) and third (Q3 ) for each feature, the inter-
quartile range (IQR) is determined using equation (2). The values of
the lower inner fence (LIF) and upper inner fence (UIF) are then
calculated separately for each property (Equation (3) and (4)). Data
with values less than LIF and more than UIF are identified as outlier
data and must be removed from each attribute.
IQR ¼ 1:5  ðQ3  Q1 Þ
LIF ¼ Q1  IQR
UIF ¼ Q2 þ IQR
2.1.2. Feature selection
Feature selection is one of the fundamental concepts in data
mining that affects the model performance significantly. Therefore,
it is important to consider feature selection as the initial step to
design the model of interest. Feature selection is a process in which
the features with the highest influence on the prediction variable or
the desired output are recognized and selected either manually or
automatically. Hence, this process reduces a large dimension
feature vector into a smaller one by eliminating the irrelevant
features.
The inclusion of irrelevant features in the model input data re-
duces the accuracy and results in the generation of a model based
on these features which may affect the application of such poorly
Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123
developed models. The criterion for feature selection is the nu-
merical value of the feature weight that is evaluated by the feature
selection algorithm. At first, the feature selection algorithm should
calculate the weight of each feature, and then, the weight of all
features is compared with a threshold value. Finally, features with
weights higher than the threshold value are selected for the
modeling, and the rest are discarded.
Various techniques have been proposed for feature selection
which can be categorized into two “Filter” and “Wrapper” groups.
In Filter methods, features are designated without training and
based on their direct correlation with the output parameter. On the
other hand, Wrapper approach employs a series of training pro-
cesses. Studies favor the Wrapper technique with superior re-
sponses compared to the Filter methods [33]. This study employs
neighborhood component analysis which falls under the Wrapper
methods, for feature selection.
Goldberger et al. [34] introduced the neighborhood component
analysis as a non-parametric method, aiming to maximize the ac-
curacy of the clustering algorithms and regression. If
S ¼ fðxi ; yi Þ; i ¼ 1; 2; …; Ng is considered as the training input data,
xi 2Rp is a feature vector and yi 2R is the corresponding output
vector. The objective here is to find values for the weight vector w in
(2) 1  p dimension. These values indicate the significance of the fea-
tures in estimating the response variable. In this method, xj is a
(3) sample reference point among all the samples for xi sample. Pij ; the
probability of the xj selection as the xi reference point from all the
(4) samples is very sensitive to the distance of the two samples. This
distance is represented by the weighted distance dw , and is defined
via equation (5) [34]:
  Xp  
dw xi ; xj ¼ w2m xim  xjm  (5)
m¼1
where wm is the allocated weight for the mth feature. The corre-
lation between the probability Pij and the weighted distance dw is
made possible by the kornel function k in equation (6).
  
k dw xi ; xj
Pij ¼ PN    (6)
j¼1;jsi k dw xi ; xj
Moreover, if i ¼ j, then pii ¼ 0. Kornel function in equation (7) is
111
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al.
defined as follows:
 z
kðzÞ ¼ exp  (7)
s
where s is the kornel width which influences the probability of xj
selection as the reference point. Assuming b y is the predicted
response values by the random regression model for the point xi
and l : R2 /R is the loss function (determines the difference be-
tween the yi and ybi ), average value lðyi ; ybi Þ is computed using
equation (8):
X
N   neurons in each layer, the network has to be trained to adjust and
li ¼ Pij l yi ; yj (8)
j¼1;jsi
Leave-one-out is a strategy implemented to increase the accu-
racy of the regression model. The inclusion of this strategy on the
training data S ensures the success of the neighborhood component
regression. Summation of training data li divided by the number of
data present in the training data collection is the average accuracy
of the leave-one-out regression. Although, this objective function is
prone to overfitting. A regularization term l was introduced to
prevent the overfitting of the neighbor component analysis model
which has equal value for all the weights in one problem. Therefore,
the objective function can be presented as shown in equation (9):
1 X X
N p
f ðwÞ ¼ li  l w2m (9)
N m¼1
i¼1
The defined objective in this correlation is known as the regu-
larized NCA. Weight values for the features are introduced to
minimize the objective function. Different loss functions such as
root mean square error and average absolute deviation may be
utilized in equation (9).
2.2. Multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLP-NN)
Artificial neural network (ANN) is one of the data-based
modeling techniques that is used extensively to solve compli-
cated problems such as clustering and classification, pattern
recognition, and estimation, and prediction. ANN is made of several
calculation blocks, known as the artificial neuron, and has a flexible
structure that enables the network to model non-linear problems
[35].
Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) has been employed repetitively to
solve the function estimation problems from the existing types of
ANN. This type of network consists of three layers: input, hidden,
and output layers [36]. The neurons at each layer are connected to
the neurons at the next layer using weights with values in a range
of [1, 1]. Each neuron in MLP-NN performs two summation and
multiplication operations on the inputs, weights, and biases
[12,36e38]. Initially, inputs, weights, and biases are summed up
using equation (6):
X
n Xa þ Xb þ Xg
Sj ¼ wij Ii þ bj (10)
i¼1
In this equation n is the number of inputs, Ii is the ith input
variable, bj is the bias for the jth neuron and wij is the connecting
weight between ith input and jth neuron.
In the next step, an activation function must be applied to the
output of the correlation 6. Different activation functions may be
utilized in an MLP-NN, of which the most common types are listed
in Table 2:
112
Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123
Table 2
Popular activation functions in MLP-NN.
Function name Equation
Linear fj ðSj Þ ¼ Sj
Sigmoid
fj ðSj Þ ¼
1
1 þ eSj
Tangent hyperbolic 2
fj ðSj Þ ¼ 1
1 þ e2Sj
After setting the number of hidden layers and the number of
update the weights and biases using training algorithms. For this
purpose, classic training algorithms are generally applied such as
Levenberg-Marquardt (LM), conjugate gradient (CG), Newton
method (NM), gradient descent (GD), and quasi-Newton (QN). The
selection of the training algorithm must be based on the type of
problem that is going to be solved. Nevertheless, LM has been re-
ported to have superior computational speed among all other
methods but requires large memory [39]. GD algorithm, unlike LM,
has lower computational speeds but requires less memory [39].
Therefore, in problems with a large amount of data it is better to use
GD algorithm to save the memory.
2.3. Optimization algorithms
A review of studies about MultiLayer Perceptron by using
different learning Algorithms in the oil and gas industry shows that
models that use meta-heuristic optimization algorithms are more
accurate and generalizable in comparison with classic algorithms
[3]. Thus, in this research Genetic, PSO, and Social ski-driver opti-
mization algorithms were used as Neural Network learning
algorithms.
2.3.1. Social ski-driver (SSD)
A novel optimization SSD algorithm was introduced in 2019 by
Tharwat and Grabel [31]. This algorithm is based on a random
search, which is somehow reminiscent of a ski rider moving down a
mountain slope. The parameters of this algorithm are as follows:
(1) Ski-driver place (Xi 2Rn Þ: This parameter is used to evaluate
the objective function in the desired location. The value of n
indicates the size of the search space.
(2) Best previous location (Pi Þ: The compatibility value for all ski
drivers is calculated with the help of the compatibility
function. The calculated value for each factor is compared to
the current values and the best one is stored. This value is
similar to the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm.
(3) The average of the general Solution (Mi Þ: In this algorithm,
like the gray wolf optimization algorithm, the ski drivers pass
through the global points and show the best values which
are depicted in Fig. 2.
Mit ¼ (11)
3
where Xa , Xb , Xg show the best results in the t-th iteration.
The speed of the ski-driver ðVi Þ: The location of the ski driver is
updated by adding speed, and this value is calculated using the
following equations:
Xitþ1 ¼ Xit þ Vit (12)
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

The flowchart of the PSO algorithm is shown in Fig. 3. The PSO

algorithm finds the best solution in the search space using a particle
population called congestion. The algorithm starts by initializing
the population position randomly in the search space (lower and
upper limit of decision variables) and initializing the speed be-
tween the lower limit (Vmin ) and the upper limit ((Vmax ). The
specified locations for the particles are stored as their best personal
position (Pb ). The position of all particles is evaluated by the
objective function, and the particle with the minimum value of the
objective function is selected as the best global position (Gb ). In
each iteration, the new velocity (Vi ðt þ 1Þ) for each particle (i) is
defined based on the previous velocity (Vi ðt)) and the distance of
the current location (xi ðtÞ) from the best personal and global po-
sitions, which is shown in equation (15) [42]. Subsequently, the
new situation of the particle (xi ðt þ 1Þ) is calculated based on the
previous position and the new velocity (Equation (16)). The new
location of the particles is then assessed with the objective func-
tion. iterations continue until the termination conditions are
reached. This algorithm is a very suitable method for continuous
problems due to its continuous nature.

Fig. 2. Demonstrate how particles A and B move toward the average of the three best
answers using the SSD algorithm. Particle A moves nonlinearly to A0 and then to A00 , as
Vi ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wVi ðtÞ þ c1 r1 ðPbi ðtÞ  xi ðtÞÞ þ c2 r2 ðGb ðtÞ  xi ðtÞÞ
does particle B [31]. (15)

8
< c sinðr ÞP t  X t  þ sinðr ÞMt  X t if r  0:5 xi ðt þ 1Þ ¼ xi ðtÞ þ Vi ðt þ 1Þ (16)
tþ1 1 i i 1 i i 2
Vi ¼     (13)
: c cosðr1 Þ P t  X t þ cosðr1 Þ Mt  X t if r2 > 0:5 where i ¼ 1; 2;…;n, and n is the number of particles in the swarm;
i i i i
w is Inertial weight (the amount of recurrence that controls the
where Vi is velocity of Xi and r1 ; r2 are random numbers that are particle velocity) [43,44] and the range [0.5,0.9] improves the
uniformly generated in the range of 0 and 1. Pi is the best solution performance of the PSO algorithm (Martinez and Cao, 2018)); c1 ; c2
for the i-th ski-driver, Mi is the average of the total solution for the which are positive coefficients, are called personal and collective
whole population and c is a parameter that is used to create a learning factors, respectively, and r1 ; r2 are random numbers in the
balance between exploration and extraction, the value is calculated range [0,1] [44,45].
by Equation (14), in which a has a value between zero and one.
Increasing the number of repetitions reduces the value of c. Thus,
by increasing the number of iterations, the exploratory property of
the algorithm decreases, and its focus on the solutions increases.

ctþ1 ¼ act (14)

The main purpose of the SSD algorithm is to search spaces to
find the optimal or near-optimal answer. The number of parame-
ters that should be optimized determines the dimension of the
search space. In this algorithm, the position of the particles is first
randomly set and then the position of the particles is updated by
adding speed to the previous position according to Equation (12).
Also, the velocity of the particles is created according to Equation
(13) as a function of the current position of the particle, the best
personal position, and the best position of all particles so far, and
based on those particles, move nonlinearly towards the best answer
- which is the result of the average of the three best answers that
exist right now. This nonlinear motion increases the ability to
explore new solutions in the SSD algorithm [31].

2.3.2. Particle swarm optimization

The PSO algorithm was developed by Kennedy and Eberhart
[40], inspired by the social behavior of organisms in groups such as
birds and fish. Instead of focusing on a single individual imple-
mentation, this algorithm focuses on one particle of individuals.
Also, in this algorithm, the information of the best position of all
particles is shared. Although the convergence rate in this algorithm
is high, it is very difficult to get rid of the local optimization if the
PSO gets stuck in it [41]. Fig. 3. PSO algorithm flowchart [11,46e48].

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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al.
2.3.3. Genetic algorithm
Genetic algorithm is a type of evolutionary algorithm which was
introduced by Holland and is inspired by the science of biology and
concepts such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and combination
[49,50]. Fig. 4 shows how the genetic algorithm works to find the
optimal solution. As shown in this figure, a genetic algorithm, like
other evolutionary algorithms, begins with an initial population of
randomly generated chromosomes. Each of these chromosomes is
then evaluated with an objective function that allocates a value
called fitness to them. In the next step, chromosomes participate in
the reproduction process (crossover operation) as parent chromo-
somes according to the amount of fitness function they have. The
lower the cost function, the more chances chromosomes have for
reproduction. Next, the mutation operation is used to produce the
population of the next generation of chromosomes. Due to its
random nature, this operation allows escaping from local optimal
points. However, if elitism is used, it can be guaranteed that by
doing this process, the next population will be at least as good as
the current population. Crossover and mutation operations in the
genetic algorithm regulate its exploitation and exploration prop-
erties, respectively. The whole process is repeated for future gen-
erations and continues until the algorithm terminates [51].
2.4. Developing hybrid algorithms
After determining the structure of the multilayer perceptron
neural network, adjusting the values of weights and biases is of
particular importance and strongly affects the accuracy of the
developed model. Due to the better performance of meta-heuristic
algorithms in neural network training and determining the optimal
values of weights and biases compared to classical optimization
algorithms, GA, PSO and SSD will be used as neural network
learning algorithms.
Fig. 5 shows the hybrid steps of the MLP-GA, MLP-PSO, and MLP-
Fig. 4. GA optimization flowchart [52,53].
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Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123
SSD algorithms. After separating the data into two categories of
training and testing, the neural network designed is trained with
the LM optimization algorithm. Weights and bias values are then
extracted in the trained model and considered as the best current
values of all factors (particles or chromosomes) in meta-heuristic
optimization algorithms. Also, the sum of the number of weights
and biases is defined as the number of decision variables (search
space) in these algorithms. Fig. 6 shows how to extract the values of
weights and biases as well as their number for the MLP-NN Algo-
rithm with one hidden layer. The optimization algorithms used,
with a certain number of iterations and a specific population, are
implemented to determine the optimal values of the decision var-
iables (i.e. weights and biases) to minimize the model estimation
error. After stopping the optimization operation based on the
specified conditions, the obtained optimal values of weights and
biases are placed in the MLP model. Finally, the MLP-GA, MLP-PSO,
and MLP-SSD hybrid models are evaluated with test data.
3. Gathered data
The data collected in this study include petrophysical logs
(depth, calorimetry, corrected gamma, photoelectric coefficient,
neutron porosity, density, true resistance, and time of compression
wave travel) and corrected permeability for the area of the Fahlian
Chahi Formation in one of the southwestern field of Iran. Due to the
high heterogeneity in this carbonate formation, which consists of
limestone, the use of FMI can provide a good permeability profile.
Table 3 shows the range of variations of each feature along with
some statistical indicators for the collected data. Fig. 7 shows the
log of changes in the values of each feature in the Fahlian Formation
of the studied well. According to this figure the increase in the
diameter of the well, especially in the approximate range of
4400e4420 m, has affected the values of the harvested character-
istics. Therefore, preprocessing seems necessary to remove outlier
data.
4. Results and discussion
Based on the initial evaluations, the values of the harvested logs
are affected by noise. Therefore, the Tukey method was used to
remove the outliers. IQR was calculated using the values of the first
and the third quartiles. and the upper and lower limits were
determined. Accordingly, 339 data points (i.e., 21% of data) were
identified as outliers and were removed.
Fig. 8 shows the matrix of Pearson correlation coefficients be-
tween the features. There is no significant relationship between the
corrected gamma and permeability in the studied well. In contrast,
the porosity, density, and compressional travel time of sonic waves
have the highest correlation with permeability. Porosity and
compression wave travel time are directly related, and density is
inversely related to permeability.
It is necessary to apply the NCA algorithm to the data for the
feature selection among the given variables. However, the data first
needs to be normalized and then the optimal lambda value in
Equation (9) must be calculated. For mapping data between 1-
and þ1 by specifying the maximum values (Xmax ) and minimum
(Xmin ) for each attribute, the mapped values (Xnorm ) can be deter-
mined using Equation (17). To ascertain the optimal lambda value,
the amounts between zero and 1.3 were defined with a step of one
hundred-thousandth, and then with the k-fold cross-validation al-
gorithm, the RMSE quantity for each of the lambda values was
determined to estimate the permeability based on all inputs. The
sensitivity analysis implies the number of folds in the k-fold cross-
validation algorithm for this problem was considered 10. Fig. 9
shows the error value for different lambda values for estimating
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

Fig. 5. MLP-GA, MLP-PSO and MLP-SSD hybrid algorithm development flowchart.

Fig. 6. Extracting weights and biases in the form of decision variables vectors and the number of these variables for a hidden single-layer MLP-NN in order to optimize their values
with meta-heuristic algorithms.

Table 3
Range of changes of each feature along with some statistical indicators for the data recorded in Fahlian Formation of the studied well.

Statistical Indicators Parameters

Depth (m) HCAL (in) CGR (GAPI) PEF (B/E) NPHI (V/V) RHOB (G/C3) RT (OHMM) DTCO (us/ft) Perm (mD)

Feature Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 e
Minimum 4318.864 3.886 10.549 0.900 0.004 2.252 5.720 48.775 0.000
1st Quartile 4380.090 5.771 21.232 4.407 0.049 2.378 28.574 54.888 0.493
Mean 4441.317 6.060 27.512 5.004 0.103 2.466 233.971 62.844 24.095
3rd Quartile 4502.544 5.993 31.359 5.842 0.152 2.551 105.995 69.485 35.168
Maximum 4563.770 8.981 82.508 7.096 0.227 2.762 13933.301 78.728 325.332

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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al.
Fig. 7. Profile of depth changes of the values for each parameter in the Fahlian Formation of the studied well.
permeability using all inputs. As can be seen in this figure, the best
value for lambda to achieve the lowest error in the estimate is
0.13669. Therefore, this value was defined in Equation (9) to specify
the properties with the greatest effect on permeability for lambda.


X  Xmin
Xnorm ¼ 2  1
Xmax  Xmin
Fig. 10 shows the values obtained for each of the features in the
permeability estimation using the NCA algorithm. As can be seen in
this figure, the properties of depth, porosity, true resistance, and
compression wave travel time have the highest value (effect) in
permeability estimation. Therefore, these properties were consid-
ered as the input of hybrid models for permeability estimation in
the modeling stage.
For permeability modeling using selected features, 80% of the
data were designated as training and 20% as test data. Then, MLP-
Fig. 8. Matrix diagram of pairwise comparisons of independent and dependent parameters in the studied well after removal of outliers.
Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123
NN with different structures was used to model the training data,
which showed that the best structure for modeling permeability
with selected properties is the use of an MLP-NN with two hidden
layers, which are 3 and 5 neurons. They are in the first and second
layers, respectively.
Fig. 11 compares the results of three network training algo-
(17) rithms, Trainlm, Tgrainscg, and Trainrp. The Trainlm algorithm is a
network training function that updates weight and bias values
based on Levenberg-Marquardt optimization. The Levenberg-
Marquardt optimizer function uses the gradient vector and the
Jacobin matrix instead of the Hessian matrix. This algorithm is
designed to work specifically with loss functions, which are defined
as the sum of error squares. The trainscg algorithm updates weights
and biases based on the scaled conjugate gradient method. SCG was
developed by Müller. Unlike algorithms for conjugate gradients
that require a line, this algorithm does not perform the search steps
linearly, thus reducing computational time. The Trainrp algorithm
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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

Fig. 9. RMSE changes for different lambda options in the NCA feature selection
algorithm. Fig. 11. Comparing different training algorithms in the accuracy of MLP-NN.

in 169 epochs. According to the figure, it is clear that at first, the

MSE error decreased with a steep slope and then reached a fixed
trend. Also, overfitting did not occur, and the best error rate in the
validation step with this method is 11.8889.
Fig. 13 shows cross plots of measured and the predicted
permeability of the rock for training, validation, and test and all
data. The charts indicate a good forecasting trend, except for one
outlier point, which can be seen in the training step. According to
the graph from zero to the first half, the line graph y ¼ t and the
amount of permeability estimation are superimposed, however, in
the second half, the estimated value is less than the actual value, so
the underestimation has occurred. The correlation coefficient (R)
values for train, test and validation steps are 0.99354, 0.99578, and
0.99383, respectively, indicating that the MLP method is acceptable
for predicting rock permeability. Outliers affect the amount of R, so
We have also calculated the RMSE, which were equal to 4.0244,
4.3603, and 4.9080 in train, validation, and test cases, which also

Fig. 10. The value obtained using the NCA feature selection algorithm for each of the
studied features.

also updates weights and biases based on the resilient back-

propagation algorithm. This algorithm eliminates the effect of
partial derivative size. In this algorithm, only the derivative symbol
is used to determine the direction of weight updates, and its
magnitude does not affect weight updates. It should be noted that
the results of the implementation of the above algorithms in 10
consecutive iterations with the best results are drawn in this dia-
gram. Considering RMSE as the evaluation criterion, it is clear that
the Trainlm method has the lowest error rate among the described
methods. Therefore, the mentioned method is reliable and can be
used to implement the MLP neural network algorithm.
The diagram of the mean square error (MSE) changes in epochs
for the MLP method with the Levenberg-Marquardt optimizer has
shown in Fig. 12. As mentioned earlier, neural network architecture
consists of 2 hidden layers with 3 and 5 neurons. In this method,
the stop condition is considered not to improve the validation error
rate in 6 consecutive repetitions, which finally ends the algorithm Fig. 12. Changes of MSE for training, validation and test subsets at each iteration.

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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

Fig. 13. Crossplots of measured and predicted permeability for training, validation, test and all data.

indicates the reliability of this method.
Fig. 14 illustrates the error histogram of the trained neural
network with 20 bins for the three steps of train, validation, and
test. As we can see, the orange line means the average accuracy in
the middle of the chart is close to zero, and the curve has a normal
distribution and is slightly skewed to the right. This indicates that
the fitting error (error distribution of this method) is in an appro-
priate range.
For permeability modeling with hybrid algorithms, it is neces-
sary to determine the values of controllable parameters of the
optimization algorithm. For this purpose, a sensitivity analysis was
performed, the results of which are displayed in Table 4.
The measured and predicted values of rock permeability for
three hybrid models which were introduced in this paper are
shown in Fig. 15 on both training and test data. The coefficient of
determination (R2 ) expresses an alternative method to the RMSE
(objective function of the model) for evaluating the accuracy of the

Table 4
Results of sensitivity analysis on the controllable parameters of optimization
algorithms.

Optimization Parameters Values

algorithms

SSD Population 120

Inertia coefficient 0.98
Correction coefficient 2.0
PSO Swarm size 125
Cognitive constant 2.05
Social constant 2.05
Inertia weight (Damping ratio) 0.95
GA Population 130
Selection method Roulette wheel
Crossover Uniform
Mutation Uniform (p ¼ 0.06)
Mutation rate 0.07
Selection pressure (Roulette 2
wheel)
Fig. 14. Error histogram for obtained results of training, validation and test subsets
using simple MLP-NN model.
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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

model prediction. R2 is a statistical criterion that shows the ratio of
variance for a dependent variable that is described by one or more
independent variables in the regression model. If R2 ¼ 1 then the
permeability of the rock is predicted without error by the selected
independent variables. The higher this value, the lower the pre-
diction error. The values of R2 on the training and test data for the
three hybrid models (MLP-GA, MLP-PSO, and MLP-SSD) are given in
Fig. 15. These results are the best results of several sets of experi-
ments in the 10-fold cross-validation method and also show that all
of these methods have a high degree of correlation between the
measured and predicted values.
It is noteworthy that the introduced hybrid models have high
accuracy in predicting the permeability of the rock (the ability of
the rock to pass the fluid). The maximum value of R2 (0.9982) is
obtained by the MLP-SSD algorithm, which represents the best-
predicted correlation performance for rock permeability. The sec-
ond most accurate model is MLP-PSO with R2 ¼ 0.9915, followed by
MLP-GA with the lowest prediction (R2 ¼ 0.9892) accuracy among
these hybrid models. In addition, as shown in the figure, there is not
much difference in accuracy between the training and test data,
and therefore the model is not over-fitted and is reliable.
The difference between the predicted values and the measured
values for the rock permeability in the developed models is shown
in Fig. 16. The horizontal axis represents the measured perme-
ability, and the vertical axis represents the difference between the
predicted and measured permeability, known as the residual error.

Fig. 15. Measured versus predicted values for rock permeability for three developed hybrid machine-learning models applied to the training and testing data subsets: (a) MLP-GA
train data; (b) MLP-GA test data; (c) MLP-PSO train data; (d) MLP-PSO test data; (e) MLP-SSD train data; and, (f) MLP-SSD test data.

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M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al.
Although this error cannot be a valid indicator for the predicted
model, it provides an understanding of the predictive performance
of the models used in the permeability of the rock. The smallest
mean residual error is 0.119 for the MLP-PSO hybrid model, fol-
lowed by the MLP-SSD and MLP-GA models with absolute residual
error values of 0.1209 and 0.2108, respectively. In general, the
developed hybrid models used to predict rock permeability have
acceptable predictive performance and the amount of noise or ir-
regularities is not significant.
The error histogram of hybrid models 1, 2, and 3 are shown in
Fig. 17. According to the figures, it is clear that the means of the
studied models are close to zero, and their standard deviation is
insignificant compared to the maximum recorded value. The
normal distributions, which are plotted on the error values ob-
tained for all models, seem symmetrical and slightly skewed to the
right.
In evaluating forecast accuracy, we will gain a more accurate
insight by comparing several separate statistical accuracies. In
addition to the coefficient of determination R2 , the variance cal-
culus, the root mean square error, the objective function of the
hybrid models, and the performance index are used to evaluate the
model's accuracy. The equations used for the calculation of these
statistical parameters are shown in Appendix A.
The accuracy of the proposed models varies according to the
small values of RMSE and the high values of VAF. Table 3 illustrates
the values of RMSE, VAF, and PI for the models developed in this
Fig. 16. Relative deviations of measured versus predicted values of rock permeability (mD) for developed machine-learning models: (a) MLP-GA; (b) MLP-PSO; and (c) MLP-SSD.
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Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123
research. As can be seen, there is no significant difference between
the accuracy obtained for the training and test data, so the intro-
duced models are reliable, and no over-fitting has occurred during
the training process.
According to Table 5, the RMSE value for MLP-SSD is smaller
than the RMSE calculated for the test data of other hybrid models.
In second place is the MLP-PSO method with RMSE ¼ 2.57 and
VAF ¼ 99.15. It is followed by the MLP-GA model with the RMSE
value of 2.89, which has the maximum absolute value of PI between
the proposed methods.
Fig. 18 illustrates the error changes in 10 runs with300 different
iterations of SSD, PSO, and GA optimization algorithms in each run.
In terms of the average changes, the GA optimization algorithm
reaches the desired value of RSME in approximately 200 iterations.
The SSD and PSO algorithms converge in 270 and 300 iterations,
respectively. In addition, all the algorithms under study are
convergent and will reach almost the same RMSE after a certain
number of iterations. The only difference is that the GA method has
less computational time than other methods. The training time of
MLP network is significantly shorter than the hybrid algorithms.
MLP-GA has the shortest training time among the hybrid algo-
rithms. MLP-PSO is performing slightly faster than the MLP-SSD.
Running the code on a system with 64.0 GB RAM and 2.4 GHz
CPU (2 processors) resulted in 28 s, 726 s, and 771 s calculation time
for MLP, MLP-PSO, and MLP-SSD algorithms, respectively.
M. Matinkia, R. Hashami, M. Mehrad et al. Petroleum 9 (2023) 108e123

Fig. 17. Error (mD) histogram with fitted normal distribution (red line) for three hybrid machine-learning models: (a) MLP-PSO; (b) MLP-GA; and (c) MLP-SSD.

5. Conclusions
This study employs intelligent hybrid methods to estimate the
permeability of rock from other petrophysical features. Multilayer
perceptron network was combined with three heuristic algorithms
(SSD, GA, and PSO) to optimize the efficiency and improve the
convergence of the networks. Petrophysical logs and data were
collected from a well drilled into Fahlian formation in one of the
Iranian southwestern fields. The outliers in the data were identified
and removed and feature selection was carried out to enhance the
accuracy of the network in predicting the permeability of the rock.
The results show all the tested hybrid methods estimate the
permeability with high accuracy. MLP-SSD method which was used
Table 5
Prediction accuracy statistical measures of permeability (mD) for three developed
machine learning models.
for the first time in this study for estimation of permeability
demonstrated slightly better results compared with other hybrid
methods. MLP-GA was the least computationally expensive method
among the examined networks. Overall, the excellent performance
of the hybrid methods in the estimation of permeability for the case
studied here indicates that such algorithms are applicable in highly
heterogeneous formations.
6. Limitations and suggestions
The generated results in this study are limited to the Fahlian
carbonate formation. Although we expect the model to work effi-
ciently in other zones because of its excellent performance in a
highly heterogeneous formation, still, it is advised to use the model
with care in other formations and rocks.

Model Subset R-square RMSE (mD) VAF PI AARD Code and data availability
MLP-GA Test 0.9892 2.89 98.93 0.9151 1.99
Train 0.9959 1.68 99.59 0.341 1.43 The developed MLP-SSD and MLP-PSO codes in MATLAB R2020b
MLP-PSO Test 0.9915 2.57 99.15 0.5895 0.72 to produce this paper are available at https://github.com/
Train 0.9976 1.27 99.76 0.7187 0.45 mmehrad1986/Hybrid-MLP.
MLP-SSD Test 0.9928 2.37 99.28 0.3879 0.79 The used data in this study is not available because of respecting
Train 0.9982 1.12 99.81 0.8705 0.37
the commitment to maintain the confidentiality of the information.
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Fig. 18. The convergence error for a) MLP-SSD b) MLP-PSO c) MLP-G.

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