Downhole Look Getting Better
Data has benefits
The fairly recent commercial availability of electrical borehole imaging tools enables operators to economically and effectively maximize their assets, without expensive coring in many cases.
These tools are marketed not just for the major players but for the small one- or two-well operators as well, according to AAPG member Paul Elliott, global product champion borehole imaging at Halliburton.
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The fairly recent commercial availability of electrical borehole imaging tools enables operators to economically and effectively maximize their assets, without expensive coring in many cases.
These tools are marketed not just for the major players but for the small one- or two-well operators as well, according to AAPG member Paul Elliott, global product champion borehole imaging at Halliburton.
He noted they’re especially popular in the unconventional resource plays, such as shales.
Tools compatible with fresh mud were the first of the borehole imager wireline units to come down the pike. Oil-based mud tools followed, once the manufacturers conquered the complexities indigenous to imaging in this medium.
In fact, detailed structural, sedimentological and petrophysical analysis using image data is now possible in wells drilled with oil-based muds, according to Grant Barton, product line manager for geology/support services at Houston-based Baker Atlas.
Elliott summarized how his company’s imagers aid in lowering risk:
- X-tended Range Micro Imager (XRMI™) tool for salty borehole fluids and highly resistive formations reduces risk by helping:
- Take the guesswork out of identifying the subsurface sedimentary sequence.
- Describe the reservoir facies just like cores, or the ground truth.
- Show bedding dips that help rationalize the choice of next drilling locations.
- Choose sidewall core zones, formation testing zones and perforation intervals accurately by integrating images with other open hole logs.
- Compute accurate high resolution net-to-gross.
- Oil Mud Reservoir Imager (OMRI™) tool for oil-based muds helps:
- Identify important reservoir characteristics, such as structural and stratigraphic dips, sedimentary geometry and texture, borehole stresses and lithologic unit thickness.
- Recognize features beyond resolution of conventional logs, including permeability barriers, sand attributes, clasts, vugs and more.
- Complement or replace whole core.
- Quantify important reservoir chracteristics such as lithology, porosity, water saturation, permeability, fluid profile and flow potential when integrated with other logs and well information.
- Identify and quantify thin bed pay.
- Oil-based mud imaging also has a high profile at Baker Atlas. Barton noted the company’s Earth Imager® borehole imaging tool provides high resolution resistivity images that offer an array of benefits:
- Provides information for a more accurate geological model.
- Helps determine reservoir permeability trends and drainage patterns.
- Optimizes development well placement and hydrocarbon depletion efficiency.
- Describes fracture aperture, connectivity and orientation.
- Reduces coring and associated costs.
- Acquires quality data in highly deviated and horizontal wells.