Well Logging

What is well logging?

 How does well logging work?

When and why do we need it?

 Units Must All Remember
• Oilfield Units are based on UK/US “Imperial” measures. These are still in
• common use even though most oil producing areas have opted for
• metric or “field metric” units.
• The important units for our needs are:

• Barrel, bbl (42 US gallons) equivalent to 0.159 m3

• psi (pounds per square inch) equivalent to 6.895 kPa

• or 0.069 bar
• Bar equivalent to 100 kPa
• or 14.5 psi
• scf (standard cubic feet or ‘SCUFF’) equivalent to 0.0283 m3
 Well Logs Term
• "well logs" is borrowed from ship nomenclature.
Similar to a ship's log that tracks the events
aboard the vessel, a well log tracks the events of
drilling, but instead of being plotted in a timeline,
a well log is recorded by depth drilled. In the
early 1800s, well loggers scaled the oilfield
derricks and simply wrote down what happened
at certain depths, including problems, types of
formations encountered, speed of drilling and, of
course, oil or gas flows.
 Well logging History
• In the early 1900s, Conrad Schlumberger
envisioned the concept of using electrical
measurements to map subsurface formations;
and in 1927, he and his brother Marcel
performed the world's first electrical resistivity
well log in France. (Resistivity is the
measurement of the level of difficulty an
electric current has passing through a
formation.)
 Well Logging
• Well logging is the process of recording various
physical, chemical, electrical, or other properties
of the rock/fluid mixtures penetrated by drilling a
borehole into the Earth’s crutse.
• Oil well logging is a process where
instrumentation is lowered into a borehole to
determine the properties of the geologic
formations surrounding the bore.
• It can be used to determine the porosity,
permeability, shale beds, the presence of
hydrocarbons in the formation.
 Well logging
• Millions of dollars can be spend drilling oil and
gas well so it is very important to gather as
much information as possible at every stage to
determine if it is a good business to continue
drilling and complete the well.
 Importance of well logging
• Logging a well is one very effective way for oil
and gas companies gather details information
about the difference layer of rock they drilled
through. This gives greater certainty about
whether hydrocarbons are present. If the well
is not promising the process can be stop and
the well abundant before paying the cost in
completing the well
 Well logging
• Once the well has been drilled to its target depth
the drilling pipe and bit are removed from the
hole. A specialized logging crew tools and
equipment are brought in to the location . the
crew assemble a probes which are connected
together
• Well logging chronicles the depths, subsurface
formations and events encountered while drilling.
Well logs can include visual observations or be
made by instruments lowered into the well
during drilling.
Production well
 Resistivity logs concept
• Resistivity logging is a method of well logging
that works by characterizing the rock or
sediment in a borehole by measuring its
electrical resistivity. Resistivity is a
fundamental material property which
represents how strongly a material opposes
the flow of electric current. The log must run
in holes containing electrically conductive
mud or water.
 Resistivity Concept
• Resistivity logging is sometimes used in mineral
exploration (especially exploration for Iron and
potassium) and water-well drilling, but most commonly
for formation evaluation in oil- and gas-well drilling.
Most rock materials are essentially insulators, while
their enclosed fluids are conductor. Hydrocarbon fluids
are an exception, because they are almost infinitely
resistive. When a formation is porous and contains
salty water, the overall resistivity will be low. When the
formation contains hydrocarbon, or contains very low
porosity, its resistivity will be high. High resistivity
values may indicate a hydrocarbon bearing formation.
 Basic well logging

• Gamma ray logging is a method of measuring

naturally occurring gamma radiation to
characterize the rock or sediment in a borehole
or drill hole. It is a wireline logging method used
in mining, mineral exploration, water-well
drilling, for formation evaluationn in oil and gas
well drilling .Different types of rock emit different
amounts and different spectra of natural gamma
radiation. In particular, shales usually emit more
gamma rays than other sedimentary rocks, such
as sandstone,Limestone.
 SP (spontaneous potential)
• logs indicate the permemabilities of rocks in
the well by measuring the amount of electrical
current generated between the drilling fluid
and the formation water that is held in pore
spaces of the reservoir rock. Porous
sandstones with high permeabilities tend to
generate more electricity than impermeable
shales. Thus, SP logs are often used to tell
sandstones from shales.
 Resistivity Log
• Resistivity logs determine what types of fluids
are present in the reservoir rocks by
measuring how effective these rocks are at
conducting electricity. Because fresh water
and oil are poor conductors of electricity they
have high resistivities. By contrast, most
formation waters are salty enough that they
conduct electricity with ease. Thus, formation
waters generally have low resistivities.
 Borehole compensated Log
• Also called sonic logs, determine porosity by
measuring how fast sound waves travel
through rocks in the well. In general, sound
waves travel faster through high-density
shales than through lower-density sandstones.
 Formation Density Compensated
• FDC (formation density compensated) logs,
also called density logs, determine porosity by
measuring the density of the rocks.
 CNL (compensated neutron)
• Also called neutron logs to Determine
porosity by assuming that the reservoir pore
spaces are filled with either water or oil and
then measuring the amount of hydrogen
atoms (neutrons) in the pores.
 NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)
• These logs measure the magnetic response of
fluids present in the pore spaces of the
reservoir rocks. In so doing, these logs
measure both porosity and permeability, as
well as the types of fluids present in the pore
spaces.
 Borehole Environment
• The formations in the sub-surface are at raised
pressure, and are occupied by fluids which are
also at
high pressure.
• The pressure that a rock is subjected to at a
given depth is determined by the weight of
the rock above
it, and hence the density of that rock. This is
called the overburden pressure.
 Overburden Pressure

• Pover = ρrock*g*h
where : Pover= is the overburden pressure at depth h
ρrock = the mean rock density above the depth
g = the acceleration due to gravity
h = the depth to the measurement point.
 Drilling Muds
• Drilling muds are used for at least three
reasons:
• To lubricate the drill bit.
• To remove drilled material away from the drill
bit and transport them to the surface.
• To counteract the fluid pressure in the rock.
• Stabilize the wellbore.
 DRILLING MUD
• If a well could be drilled without a drilling fluid, formation
fluids, which are under their fluid pressure, would spurt out
of the borehole (blow-out). The density of the drilling fluid
used in a particular borehole is designed to generate a
drilling mud pressure (due to the weight of the drilling mud
in the borehole above a given depth) that counteracts the
fluid pressure in the formation and prevent blowouts.
• This is usually successful, but because sudden increases in
overpressure can be encountered the drilling mud pressure
is kept higher than necessary as a safety feature. When the
mud pressure is greater than the formation fluid pressure,
the well is said to be over-balanced.