Image Log Data: The Key to Unlocking NZ s Coal Seam Gas Potential?

Mildren, Meyer, Bartdorff and Ditty (include Nelson for use of some deviated well example???) The New Zealand coal seam gas (CSG) industry is in its infancy and with steadily increasing gas prices and decreasing gas production at Maui, it is primed for considerable growth. Exploitation of CSG is dependent on many factors and most important among those is coal fracture orientation and permeability. Image logs are commonly acquired in many conventional oil and gas wells and are used to reveal geological and geomechanical details at a resolution greater than obtained from seismic data and nearing that of logged core. The greatest advantage of image log derived interpretations is that results are oriented. These data can be used to delineate coal packages, identify coal related fracture populations and permit constraint of the in situ stress tensor which can be used in turn to evaluate fracture permeability and safe optimal well trajectories for fracture intersection. Interpretation of conventional fractures from image logs is relatively straight forward; however, fractured coals are more problematic. Cleats appear as bedding perpendicular features that can occur at any azimuth around the wellbore. In many cases it is not possible to match the appropriate fracture limbs across the borehole wall in order to derive a confident measure of fracture orientation. This paper presents an image log interpretation approach that quantifies fracture occurrence within coals to map coal permeability. A New Zealand example is given and these fracture data are combined with an image log derived geomechanical interpretation to evaluate fracture permeability and optimal wellbore trajectories.