N083 Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
Course Facts
- Course Code:
- N083
- Duration:
- 5 days
- Type:
- Classroom
- CEU:
- 4.0 Continuing Education Units
- PDH:
- 40 Professional Development Hours
- Certificate:
- Certificate Issued Upon Completion
Summary
The course examines the fundamental concepts, vocabulary, and techniques used in petrophysics, exploring the physical properties of rock formations and their pore fluids, and demonstrating how these properties are estimated both in the laboratory and the wellbore. It focuses on the key petrophysical ideas that underpin petrophysical analysis and how downhole logs and core measurements enable quantitative estimates of hydrocarbons in place.
Duration and Training Method
A five-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:
- Illustrate the geophysical parameters, petrophysical core analysis, capillary pressure, and fluid distribution data required for reservoir evaluation.
- Appraise the nature of the borehole environment.
- Illustrate how data from the main logging tools is acquired and undertake petrophysical analysis using these data.
- Establish lithology and calculate porosity from open hole wireline log and core data.
- Calculate water saturation from open hole wireline log and core data.
- Establish the key petrophysical parameters from wireline logs.
- Understand the principles of fluid sampling and borehole pressure measurements as a complementary approach to petrophysical analysis.
- Define gross, net and pay, and understand how these petrophysical concepts may be applied.
- Demonstrate how shale content in a clastic reservoir can be estimated and consider the effects of shale on the petrophysical analysis.
- Illustrate the principle petrophysical differences between conventional reservoirs and unconventional shale reservoirs.
This petrophysics course focuses on the main petrophysical attributes of porosity and saturation and how these parameters can be estimated in the laboratory from core, and downhole in the reservoir from logs. Topics covered include: the borehole environment, petrophysical properties, geophysical parameters, core analysis and special core analysis, wettability, capillary pressure and fluid distribution, and log measurements and interpretation. Particular emphasis is given to explaining principles underpinning the different measurements and the limitations of petrophysical data. Each lecture is typically associated with a short practical exercise to demonstrate specific points and to enable the student to apply their knowledge and develop their skills.
The main emphasis of the course is on evaluating the hydrocarbons in place (porosity and saturation) in conventional reservoirs; permeability and the concepts of gross, net and pay are also introduced and discussed. In addition the course considers the important effects of wettability and capillary pressure on the fluid distribution in the reservoir.
The course also briefly introduces the petrophysical analysis of unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs and considers the estimation of the adsorbed and free gas components, and the role of organic content and kerogen, introducing the concepts of Langmuir isotherms, and Langmuir pressure and volume.
Both core analysis and log analysis are considered throughout this course. The integration of these core and log data is key to estimating the hydrocarbons in place in both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs.
Day 1
Introduction to N083
Petrophysical Properties: definitions and controls
- Exercise: porosity discussion
Geophysical Parameters
- Exercise: porosity from density and sonic measurements
- Exercise: Archie’s equation: porosity and saturation from resistivity measurements
Conventional Core Analysis: porosity, saturation and permeability
- Exercise: porosity-permeability measurement
Day 2
Special Core Analysis (SCAL): Wettability, Capillary Pressure and Relative Permeability
- Exercise: capillary pressure curves
SCAL: Resistivity Measurements
- Exercise: Archie a, m and n parameters from core
SCAL: Overburden Effects
- Exercise: core porosity measurement
Borehole Environment and Downhole Logging Principles
Day 3
Downhole Logs and Log Interpretation Techniques
Gamma Ray and Spontaneous Potential Logs
- Exercise: bed boundaries, lithology and permeability indicators
Density, Neutron, Pe, Sonic and NMR Logs
- Exercise: lithology and porosity from logs
Resistivity Logs
- Exercise: clean formations – estimating Rw and fluid salinity
Imaging Logs
Day 4
Fluid distribution in the Reservoir
- Exercise: pressure measurements and fluid distribution
Petrophysical evaluation of a conventional reservoir
- Exercise: lithology, porosity and saturation
Gross, Net & Pay: definitions and applications
- Exercise: estimating net and pay
Introduction to petrophysical analysis of shaly sands and effective porosity
Day 5
Shale Reservoirs
- Shale Reservoirs Introduction
- Petrophysical models & TOC
- Free gas: Porosity & Saturation
- Permeability
- Geomechanics
Concluding discussions
Summary
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.
Prerequisites and linking courses
There are no formal prerequisites for this class, due to its introductory nature. Some knowledge of petrophysics maybe advantageous, but not essential.
There are a number of supplimentary and/or follow on classes directly related to the learning from N083. For more on Well Logs, there is N003 (Geological Interpretation of Well Logs) or N121 (Modern Petrophysical Well Log Interpretation). For more detail on working with core, N095 (Integrating Core and Log Data for Reservoir Characterisation) deals with core from drilling to interpretation.
For increased knowledge of Petrophysics, N030 (Rocks and Fluids: Practical Petrophysics, Isle of Wight UK), is a direct follow on for this class and assumes knowledge of this class before attendance. Follow on classes at Skilled Application Level include N054 (Petrophysics in Reservoir Evaluation), N187 (Low Resistivity, Low Contrast Pay), N267 (Petrophysics for Shale Gas Reservoirs) and N105 (Carbonate Petrophysics). All of these classes do assume a knowledge of Petrophysics, that 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 working as a consultant.
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
Society of Petroleum Engineers
American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Courses Taught
N054: Intermediate Petrophysics for Conventional Reservoirs
N187: Low Resistivity Low Contrast Pay
N314: Advanced Petrophysics for Conventional Reservoirs
Jeff Kelley
Jeff Kelley
Background
Jeff is currently the Chief Petrophysicist at RockWise, LLC an independent start-up designed to serve the petrophysical needs of the oil and gas industry. He specializes in the evaluation and optimization of conventional and unconventional reservoirs. He has provided critical resource analysis in developed as well as frontier unconventional reservoirs. Jeff is also a geo-mechanical specialist. He was part of a small team integral in the development of the Schlumberger 3D stress analysis used in assessing optimal horizontal well landings from a stress perspective. This knowledge is can be utilized to guide in well stimulation procedures.
Jeff is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma where he continues to be active as a member of the alumnus advisory committee. As past contributor to XTO Energy, Devon Energy, HighMount, and SandRidge Energy, he has familiarity with unconventional reservoirs including Barnett, Haynesville, Woodford, Meramec, Mancos, Niobrara, Marcellus, and a number of lesser known shales.
He has taught classes for OU in petrophysics, geology, and electronics. He has presented geomechanics and petrophysics topical expertise for numerous internal and external conferences including American Business Conference.
Affiliations and Accreditation
MSc University of Oklahoma - Geology
BSc University of Oklahoma - Geology
AS College of Air Force - Electronics
Courses Taught
N083: Petrophysics and Formation Evaluation: Principles and Practice
N439: Petrophysical Evaluation of Shale 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, and includes 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: principles & practice
N030: Rocks and Fluids: Practical Petrophysics
N267: Petrophysics for Shale Gas Reservoirs
Dates for this Course
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