1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related generally to the field of interpretation of measurements made by well logging instruments for the purpose of determining the properties of earth formations.
2. Background of the Art
A variety of instruments are used for evaluating the properties of formations surrounding a borehole in an earth formation. These include electromagnetic induction, electromagnetic wave propagation, galvanic, nuclear and acoustic logging tools. These logging tools give measurements of properties such as apparent resistivity (or conductivity) of the formation that when properly interpreted are diagnostic of the petrophysical properties of the formation and the fluids therein. A common objective of the evaluation of measurements made by the tools is to obtain formation properties with a higher resolution than the typical aperture (length) of the tools. In addition, for some of these tools, the measurements are responsive to formation properties outside the aperture of the tools. This invention is discussed in the context of a specific instrument for measuring formation conductivity (or, equivalently, formation resistivity). It is to be understood that the methodology discussed herein is applicable to other resistivity instruments as well as instruments which measure other formation properties.
The physical principles of electromagnetic induction resistivity well logging are described, for example, in, H. G. Doll, Introduction to Induction Logging and Application to Logging of Wells Drilled with Oil Based Mud, Journal of Petroleum Technology, vol. 1, p. 148, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Richardson Tex. (1949). Many improvements and modifications to electromagnetic induction resistivity instruments have been devised since publication of the Doll reference, supra. Examples of such modifications and improvements can be found, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,517; U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,605 issued to Chandler et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,761 issued to Beard et al. Other tools include the HDLL (High Definition Lateral Log) of Baker Hughes Incorporated, described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,060,885 to Tabarovsky et al., and any generic Array Laterolog tools, e.g., the High-Resolution Laterolog Array tool (HRLA) of Schlumberger Inc.
Analysis of measurements made by any array induction logging tool, for example such as that disclosed by Beard and galvanic logging tools such as the HDLL and HRLA or any generic Array Laterolog tools, is based on inversion.
One problem with inversion is that the earth is characterized by a 2-D model (layers with radial changes in resistivity within each layer) or a 3-D model (layers with radial changes in resistivity within each layer, and a relative dip between layers and the borehole). A rigorous 2-D or 3-D inversion techniques would be quite time consuming and impractical for wellsite implementation. See, for example, Mezzatesta et al., and Barber et al. Several methods have been used in the past for speeding up the inversion. Frenkel et al. (SEG Extended Abstracts, 1995; SPE #36505, 1996, SPE #77793) and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,729 to Frenkel et al., having the same assignee as the present invention and the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference disclose a so-called rapid well-site inversion method suitable for well-site (not a real-time) processing of array resistivity data. A rapid inversion method allows for substantially reducing the computational time by subdividing the 2-D/3-D problem into a sequence of smaller 1-D problems. For example, each iteration of the rapid 2-D inversion consists of the following steps: 1) calculation of all 2-D responses associated with the current earth structure, 2) for each layer, calculation of responses, assuming the layer is infinitely thick, 3) estimation of shoulder-bed corrections as the difference in responses from the two previous steps, 4) correction of the logging data for shoulder-bed effects, and 5) using the shoulder-bed corrected data, execution of a 1-D inversion problem at each layer. Each iteration consisting of all previous steps provides an updated 2-D distribution of formation parameters. The iterative cycle is repeated until the misfit between synthetic and actual data becomes less than some predetermined small value. Moreover, the rapid inversion method can be further accelerated via application of pre-calculated Look-Up Tables (LUT) of 1-D forward responses of cylindrical models. This approach is described in SPE #36505, 1996, SPE #77793, and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,729 to Frenkel et al. Griffiths et al. (SPWLA 1999, paper DDD) disclose a so-called 1-D+1-D method processing of HRLA logs. The processing consists of the following steps: borehole correction, 1-D inversion of individual logs in z direction (shoulder-bed-correction), and 1-D radial inversion of the corrected logs. The main shortcomings of this method are it does not satisfy a real-time processing requirements and it may provide inaccurate results in thin invaded layers due to coupling between shoulder beds and invasion in the adjacent layers. So it may lead to significant errors in thin invaded layers. To check the quality and correct inversion results, Griffiths et al. suggest to run a rigorous 2-D inversion which makes this technique is not applicable to even post-acquisition well-site processing.
Prior art methods for real-time well-site interpretation typically perform the 1-D radial inversion on a point by point basis. Shoulder bed effects and borehole deviation effects are not considered. Correction is made only for the borehole and invasion effects and could be approximate and lead to incorrect 1-D inversion results even in relatively thick (˜5 ft or 1.5 m) invaded formations. In addition, the inversion process may become unstable at layer boundaries, so that significant post inversion processing is often required. This filtering results in a curve of Rt (true formation or virgin zone resistivity) that frequently looks little different from the deep-reading logs of focused curves and produces little additional information. There is a need for a method of inversion of array resistivity measurements that does not suffer from these drawbacks. The present invention addresses this need.
One embodiment of the invention is a method of processing well log data acquired in a layered medium. The method performs a layer-by-layer reconstruction of formation properties. At each step, the method runs a short-window inversion or a short-window look-up table (LUT). The method accumulates results after execution of each window. The processing can start from the top or from the bottom. A cross-check can be made of results obtained by processing in different directions. The method can be used for vertical, deviated and/or horizontal wells for Logging-While-Drilling (LWD) or wireline applications. The log measurements may be galvanic or induction resistivity measurements, multicomponent induction measurements, nuclear measurements or acoustic measurements. Shoulder bed effects may be considered in the processing. As part of the evaluation of the earth formation, parameters of interest such as a thickness of a layer in the earth formation, a resistivity of a layer, a resistivity of an invaded zone, a length of an invaded zone and/or a relative dip angle may be determined.
Another embodiment of the invention is an apparatus for acquiring and processing well log data acquired in a layered medium. The apparatus includes a processor which performs a layer-by-layer reconstruction of formation properties. At each step, the processor runs a short-window inversion or a short-window table look-up. The processor accumulates results after execution of each window. The processing can start from the top or from the bottom observation points. The processor can perform a cross-check of results obtained by processing in different directions. The apparatus can be used for vertical, deviated and/or horizontal wells for Logging-While-Drilling (LWD) or wireline applications. The log measurements may be galvanic or induction resistivity measurements, multicomponent induction measurements, nuclear measurements or acoustic measurements. The processor may consider shoulder bed effect in the processing.
Another embodiment of the invention is a machine readable medium for use with an apparatus that acquires well log data in a layered medium. The medium includes instructions which enable a processor to perform a layer-by-layer reconstruction of formation properties. The instructions include running a short-window inversion or a short-window look-up table (LUT). The machine readable medium may include ROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, Flash Memories and Optical disks.
The present invention is best understood with reference to the accompanying figures in which like numerals refer to like elements and in which:
Referring now to
The instrument 10 has an elongated mandrel or body 12, a single source electrode 32 located near the upper end of the instrument housing, and several groups of identical measuring electrodes 34, 34′ and 34″ uniformly distributed along the axis of the tool mandrel, which allow for performing a number of measurements at each logging depth.
The present invention is suitable for processing of data from any array resistivity tool that has as its output apparent resistivity values with different depths of investigation. This includes multi-array induction tools such as the HDIL tool of Baker Hughes Incorporated, and Multi-Laterolog devices, such as those a laterolog array device. An exemplary laterolog device is shown in
Real-time estimation of formation parameters (e.g., Lxo, Rxo, and Rt) is normally carried out at a well-site using 1-D radial inversion of the borehole corrected array data with application of a neural networks (NN) or look-up tables (LUT) of the tool responses. See, for example, Smits et al. (SPE49328, 1998) and Zhang et al. (SEG Extended Abstracts 2000). Since this process is performed on a point-by-point basis, it does not take into account the shoulder bed effect, but corrects the data only for the invasion effect; it could lead to a significant difference between interpretation results and the true formation resistivity in thin invaded formations.
The method illustrated in
Another embodiment of the invention using a downward run is illustrated in
A variation of the downward run of
In another embodiment of the invention, steps 149 and 151 of
We next discuss certain operations that may be used in conjunction with any of the embodiments of the invention discussed above. These relate to methods of improving the accuracy of the results obtained by the inversion and speeding-up of the computations.
The first of these operations relates to the generation of an initial 1-D model. Estimation of initial model parameters is accomplished using real-time point-by-point 1D radial inversion of array logs. The modeling engine of this inversion uses the Radial Look-Up Tables (LUTR) or Neural-Nets (NN).
The next of these operations relates to generation of an initial 2-D or 3D model and optimization of formation boundary positions. The initial 1-D model is based on the initial 1-D model with no radial variation. To reduce the number of inversion parameters, we can optimize the layer thicknesses instead of the boundary positions. This can be done, for example, by using a four-layer window sliding downward. Different window length can be used in this process. Each processing window consists of two central layers and the shoulders above and below the processing window. It is optional to include layer resistivities in this optimization process. Therefore, when performing the inversion step for a single window, we optimize only the central layer thicknesses two in this case.
It should be noted that when performing the forward modeling at each processing step, both the two central layers and shoulders are included in the model. This allows us to take into account the approximate shoulder-bed effect while optimizing the layer boundary positions. At each step, we slide the processing window downward by only one layer and reprocess the data. In the general case, when both the borehole and formation parameters are used, our basic interpretation model can be described by seven parameters and the corresponding 1D Look-Up Tables of vertical tool responses (LUTV) can be calculated. These tables enable the optimization of formation boundary positions to be performed in real-time. Combining the results of the two previous steps, which were obtained using the LUTR and LUTV-based real-time 1D inversion runs, we can now generate an initial model for the Localized Rapid Inversion method discussed next.
Those versed in the art would recognize that due to the large number of parameters, it is not feasible to calculate reliable look-up tables for a multi-layer 2D/3D formation model. However, the real-time requirements for 2D inversion can be achieved with a method we call Localized Rapid Inversion (LRI), which makes use of a short-window technique described above.
Each downward sliding ‘short window’ used for rapid inversion consists of three central layers and the shoulders above and below the processing window. The use of three central layers is not to be construed as a limitation to the invention. The shoulders can consist of several layers. When performing the inversion step for a single window, we optimize model parameters of the three central layers only. It is to be noted that different window length can be used in this process. When performing the forward modeling at each processing step, both the three central layers and shoulders are included in the model. This allows us to take into account the shoulder-bed effect while determining the formation properties. At each step, we slide the processing window down by one layer and reprocess the data; so if we use for example a three-layer inversion window, there is always a two-layer overlap with the inversion window of the previous step. This approach provides stable interpretation results, and it should be noted that it can be run from top to bottom or from bottom to top of the processed interval, which can accelerate LRI up to two-fold.
The parameters of interest that may be determined using the method of the present invention may include but not limited to layer thickness, a layer resistivity, a length of an invaded zone, a resistivity of an invaded zone, a length of an annular zone in the earth formation, and a relative dip angle between the layers and the borehole.
The processing of the measurements made in wireline applications may be done by a surface processor, by a downhole processor, or at a remote location. The data acquisition may be controlled at least in part by the downhole electronics. Implicit in the control and processing of the data is the use of a computer program on a suitable machine readable medium that enables the processors to perform the control and processing. The machine readable medium may include ROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, Flash Memories and Optical disks. The term processor is intended to include devices such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The results of the processing may be output to a suitable medium and/or may be used for geosteering, making operational decisions relating to reservoir development including, well completion and drilling of additional wells.
The present invention has been discussed above with respect to measurements made by a galvanic logging tool conveyed on a wireline. This is not intended to be a limitation and the method is equally applicable to other measurements including multiarry induction measurements, multicomponent induction measurements, acoustic measurements and nuclear measurements, and to measurements made with tool conveyed on a measurement- and logging-while-drilling (MWD/LWD) assembly conveyed on a drill string or on coiled tubing. The method is applicable for measurements made in vertical or deviated (including horizontal) wells and may further include estimation of relative dip as part of the model.
While the foregoing disclosure is directed to specific embodiments of the invention, various modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art. It is intended that all variations within the scope of the appended claims be embraced by the foregoing disclosure.
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/723,991 filed on 6 Oct. 2005 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/785,423 filed on 24 Mar. 2006.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60723991 | Oct 2005 | US | |
60785423 | Mar 2006 | US |