N083 Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
Course Facts
- Course Code:
- N083
- Duration:
- 3 days
- Type:
- Classroom
- CEU:
- 4.0 Continuing Education Units
- PDH:
- 40 Professional Development Hours
- Certificate:
- Certificate Issued Upon Completion
Summary
Business Impact: Participants attending this course will acquire key petrophysical ideas that underpin petrophysical analysis and how integrated analysis of downhole logs, core data and downhole pressure measurements can enable quantitative estimates of hydrocarbons in place. It also provides an essential foundation as a precursor to the more advanced petrophysics courses.
This course examines the fundamental concepts, vocabulary, and techniques used in petrophysics. The course starts with a review of the controls on hydrocarbon accumulation and distribution in a conventional reservoir, before exploring how petrophysical properties can be determined from core and downhole logs.
Duration and Training Method
A three-day classroom course comprised of lectures interspersed with practical exercises. The only equipment needed is a scientific calculator and graph paper.
Participants will learn to:
- Understand how the critical properties of wettability and capillary pressure control the process by which hydrocarbons accumulate in a hydrocarbon reservoir.
- Define porosity; water saturation; gross, net and pay; and permeability.
- Explore how petrophysical properties can be estimated from core and from downhole logs and appreciate the limitations involved.
- Establish lithology and calculate porosity from open hole wireline log and core data.
- Calculate water saturation from open hole wireline logs.
- Understand the basic principles of (a) fluid sampling and borehole pressure measurements and (b) gross net and pay.
This petrophysics course focuses on the petrophysical analysis of hydrocarbon reservoirs to demonstrate how the main petrophysical attributes of porosity and saturation can be estimated in the laboratory from core, and downhole in the reservoir from openhole logs.
Particular emphasis is given to explaining the important principles underpinning the different measurements and the limitations of petrophysical data. Short webinar lectures are typically associated with short discussions, exercises or demonstrations designed to explore the topic, apply knowledge and develop skills.
Another key emphasis of the course is on evaluating the hydrocarbons in place (porosity and saturation) in conventional clean reservoirs. Crucially, the course considers the important effects of wettability and capillary pressure on the fluid distribution in the reservoir. Permeability and the concepts of gross, net and pay are also introduced and discussed.
Topic 1
- Introduction to Petrophysics
- The hydrocarbons in place equation
- Petrophysical properties: porosity, water saturation and permeability
Topic 2
- Fluid distribution
- Wettability and capillary pressure
- Interpretation exercise/demonstration – capillary pressure curves
Topic 3
- Core analysis: porosity, water saturation and permeability
- Interpretation exercise/demonstration - porosity and permeability; drying effects
Topic 4
- Openhole logs for lithology and porosity
- Gamma ray, SP, Density, Photoelectric, Neutron, Sonic and NMR logs
- Interpretation exercise/demonstration – lithology and porosity from logs
Topic 5
- Openhole logs for water saturation
- Resistivity logs and Archie’s equation
- Special Core Analysis for Archie’s parameters
- Interpretation exercise/demonstration – porosity and water saturation from logs
Topic 6
- Pressure gradients for fluid identification
- Defining gross, net and pay
- Integrating petrophysical data
- Integrated interpretation exercise/demonstration
Who should attend
Newly graduated scientists and petrophysicists are the main target audience, together with geologists, geophysicists and engineers who communicate with petrophysicists in regional evaluations, prospect generation and development studies. This is an excellent technical entry point for petrophysics evaluation and an ideal prerequisite to N054 (Skilled Petrophysical Methods for Conventional Reservoirs)
Prerequisites and linking courses
There are no formal prerequisites for this class. The class makes an excellent entry point for both early career petrophysicists, as well as more experienced geoscientists and engineers.
For more information on well logs and there application, participants could attend D003 (Geological Interpretation of Well Logs (Distance Learning)).
Follow up classes at Skilled Application Level include D054 (Skilled Petrophysical Methods for Conventional Reservoirs (Distance Learning)), D187 (Low Resistivity, Low Contrast Pay (Distance Learning)), and D073 (Integration of Sedimentology, Petrophysics and Seismic Interpretation for Exploration and Production of Carbonate Systems (Distance Learning)). All of these classes do assume a working knowledge of Petrophysics, which this class can provide.
Click on a name to learn more about the instructor
David Eickhoff
David Eickhoff
Background
David joined Shell Offshore in New Orleans, Louisiana as a petrophysicist where he had various assignments in production and exploration, covering all areas of the Gulf of Mexico. He worked for Pecten International, Shell’s global affiliate, in 1994, and focused on exploration in West Africa. In 1996, he moved to Shell’s South Texas Gas Asset team and worked on the development of Wilcox tight gas sands. From 1999 to 2011, David worked with Marathon Oil Corporation where he had exploration/operations assignments for Gulf of Mexico and Angola and a field development assignment for a Sirte Basin discovery in Libya. David retired from Marathon in 2011 and is now teaching industry courses.
David has a broad range of interests within petrophysics, but specializes on the elastic properties of rocks and how seismic attributes can be used to explore for and develop hydrocarbon reservoirs. Other areas of interest are compaction and quartz cementation modeling of clastics for reservoir quality prediction. He has extensive experience in log and core data acquisition as well as reservoir characterization.
Affiliations and Accreditation
BSc California Polytechnic State University - Mechanical Engineering
Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts
American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Courses Taught
N054: Skilled Petrophysical Methods for Conventional Reservoirs
N083: Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
N187: Low Resistivity Low Contrast Pay
N314: Advanced Petrophysics for Conventional Reservoirs
Mike Lovell
Mike Lovell
Background
Mike’s research has focused on the physical properties of rocks and their interdependence, utilizing both laboratory measurements on core and downhole measurements in assessing reservoir and repository properties, as well as investigating novel applications of electrical and acoustic measurements. Current petrophysics projects are funded by government, charities and industry, and include both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs (hydrates, coalbed methane, and shale gas). Mike’s research spans both industry and academia. Mike is a former Vice President of SPWLA, SPWLA Distinguished Speaker, and SPWLA Distinguished Service Award holder. He has been chair of the Scientific Technology Panel for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council’s Science Advisory Panel on ocean drilling, and is currently Vice President of the SPWLA Foundation. In addition he chairs the Committee of Heads of University Geoscience Departments in the UK, and is an editorial board member for Petroleum Geoscience and for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Mike has edited 7 books and published over 150 papers.
Mike teaches undergraduate university classes with emphasis on physical properties of rocks at different scales, including Reservoir Geoscience and Petroleum Reservoir Petrophysics. He also teaches both classroom based and field based petrophysics courses for industry.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD Physical Properties of Marine Sediments
MSc Wales - Marine Geotechnics
BSc Readings- Geological Geophysics with Mathematics
Courses Taught
N083: Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
N030: Rocks and Fluids: Practical Petrophysics
N267: Petrophysics for Shale Gas Reservoirs
N525: Petrophysics Uncovered: a Helpful Guide to Understanding Petrophysics
Dates for this Course
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