Formation Evaluation in Gas-Bearing

Reservoirs Drilled with Na/K Formate WBM,

Using LWD Time-Lapse Data Acquisition
Authors: Kehinde M. Fakolujo, Ali R. Al-Belowi, Kais Gzara, Oluchukwu L. Onuigbo and Ihsan T. Pasaribu

ABSTRACT
The introduction of formate-based drilling muds has successfully addressed drilling challenges related to barite weighted
muds. The formate-based muds, however, exhibited peculiar
petrophysical properties that adversely affected log interpretation. First, the mud present inside the borehole and surrounding the tool required different environmental corrections;
second, invading mud filtrate present inside the formation was
difficult to account for. Because of the higher density, lower
hydrogen index and high gamma ray readings associated with
sodium/potassium (Na/K) formate-based drilling fluids, the
petrophysical analysis typically resulted in inaccurate mineralogy and pessimistic porosity and permeability estimates. Such
estimates also became strongly dependent on the extent of invasion by the mud.
This article addresses these challenges to the use of Na/K
formate-based drilling fluids in gas-bearing siliciclastic and carbonate sequences via two new approaches. Logging-while-drilling
(LWD) time-lapse data acquisition makes it possible to track
changes in log measurements between a first (drill) pass and a
second (wipe) pass as mud filtrate invades the formation.
These changes reflect the contrast in petrophysical properties
between the mud filtrate and the displaced native formation
fluids. The first approach uses them to estimate the unknown
petrophysical properties of such mud filtrate. In the second
geometrical approach, the different measurements are viewed
as representing different axes in measurement space, and then
the axes are rotated to reduce the number of rotated measurements affected by invasion to just one. This measurement is
then discarded, and the remaining rotated measurements are
used.
In all, up to six different petrophysical models of two different wells were compared with this new modeling approach.
The results indicate a step change in petrophysical analysis in
the case of Na/K formate-based drilling fluids. They demonstrate how it is possible to build a robust but remarkably simple
petrophysical model using only rotated nuclear measurements,
with all of the following characteristics. The model is extremely
stable as compared to more complex models. It requires neither
knowledge of the Na/K formate mud filtrate characteristics
nor knowledge of its volume. It does not require resistivity
SPRING 2015

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

input, but consistently reproduces similar saturations when

compared with models using resistivity as input. Finally, data
from the drill pass and the wipe pass produce almost identical
results, independent of formation invasion.

INTRODUCTION
Petrophysical analysis of well log data involves defining the
petrophysical properties of the various minerals and fluids
present underground, including the drilling fluids. Typically,
some of these petrophysical properties are measured, whereas
others are computed using established models or calibrated according to core, mud logging, formation testing and formation
fluid sampling data.
In some situations, the petrophysical properties of some of
the fluids involved remain difficult to estimate. This is typically
the case with hydrocarbon gases, the petrophysical properties
of which depend on detailed chemical composition, pressure
and temperature, and may change during reservoir production.
This is also the case with relatively new, or constantly improved, drilling fluid formulations such as synthetic oil-based
muds, or formate muds, which are typically recycled to offset
their high cost1-7. These recycling mud treatment and optimization operations naturally introduce uncertainties in the
mud properties.
Prior to the advent of logging-while-drilling (LWD) techniques, petrophysicists used wireline log data for petrophysical
analysis. Because wireline data is normally acquired a few days
after the well has been drilled, petrophysicists typically make
the assumption that mud filtrate invasion has already progressed past the depth-of-investigation (DOI) of the various
wireline measurements except for true resistivity (RT),
which is derived from an array of resistivity measurements
used to characterize and correct for the mud invasion. Petrophysical analysis then proceeds on the basis that the wireline
log data are representative of the invaded zone only.
The introduction of LWD techniques, which involve acquiring log data only a few minutes to a few hours behind the drill
bit, represented both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge was that the mud filtrate depth-of-invasion (dinv) vs. the
DOI of the different measurements became an important consideration, Fig. 1. The opportunity was that petrophysicists

INTERPRETATION PRINCIPLES
PCA is the simplest of the true eigenvector-based multivariate
analyses. It is widely used in data processing and dimensionality reduction to extract a smaller set of linearly uncorrelated
variables (variates) called principal components from a
larger set of possibly correlated variables. It involves an orthogonal rotation to account for as much of the variability of
the data as possible. The first principal component is defined
as the one with the largest possible variance, and so on, with
the constraint that each following component is orthogonal to
all of the prior ones. In computational terms, the principal
components are found by calculating the eigenvectors and
eigenvalues of the data covariance-matrix or correlation-matrix, and ranking the eigenvectors by eigenvalue (highest to
lowest). This process is equivalent to finding the axis system in
which the covariance-matrix or correlation-matrix is diagonal.
PCA is closely related to factor analysis and is also related
to canonical correlation analysis; however, the following sections only cover PCA applications to LWD time-lapse data acquisition and analysis (TLA&A). The methods described here
have a lot in common with PCA, but we are primarily interested in the principal components
not maxi 
 with minimum,




mum, variance. The LWD data from the drill pass and the
wipe pass are first subtracted from each other, resulting in a
time-lapse dataset as follows:

 

Fig. 1. The mud filtrate invasion front progresses with time through the
measurement volume of investigation (enclosed in red), initiating changes in log
responses.

could now probe mud invasion dynamics by acquiring LWD

log data while drilling (drill pass) and after drilling (wipe
pass), using the contrast between the petrophysical properties
of the invading mud filtrate and the flushed native formation
fluid8, 9.
In particular, changes in log data between the drill pass and
the wipe pass, and therefore the formation invasion status, can
be handled in one of two ways. Because these changes capture
the difference in petrophysical properties between the invading
mud filtrate and the flushed native formation fluid, they can
serve, for example, to benchmark one vs. the other. Alternatively, the measurement (or measurements) affected by mud
invasion may simply be discarded from the petrophysical
analysis, provided sufficient measurements remain to evaluate
the formation.
Naturally, the more measurements that are affected by mud
filtrate invasion, the more challenging the situation may become.
The methods described next show how principal component
analysis (PCA) techniques can be applied to these situations to
effectively limit the number of affected measurements to just
one. The technique is then demonstrated using two examples.



(1)

where Mdrill is a vector whose entries represent actual log measurements from the drill pass.
Mwipe is a vector whose entries represent actual log measurements from the wipe pass.
M is a vector whose entries represent the difference between
the drill and wipe pass measurements.
m1drill, m2drill and m3drill represent the individual measurements
from the drill pass, assuming three log measurements only.

m1wipe, m2wipe and m3wipe represent the same three individual


measurements from the wipe pass.
m1, m2 and m3 represent the difference between the individual measurements from the drill pass and the wipe pass.
Z is an index that represents measured depth (MD).
The time-lapse data set can be visualized as the data points
coordinates in a multidimensional data space, using one axis
per measurement, Fig. 2. Although the methods considered can
work with any number of log measurements, we limit ourselves here to three measurements only, m(1, m2 and m3, for
ease of visualization. Figure 3 shows the situation where only
one measurement is affected by mud filtrate invasion. In this
figure, data points close to the origin correspond to little mud
filtrate invasion,( and the further away the data points are from
the origin, the larger the mud filtrate invasion effect. In this case,
it is enough to exclude the affected measurement from petrophysical analysis and to conclude that the other measurements


SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015







Fig. 2. Considering that each log measurement represents a different coordinate,
this figure shows three axes representing these different log measurements. The
points Mdrill, Mwipe and M represent drill pass and wipe pass data points and
their differences, respectively.

 




 
 

 

 
 










Fig. 4. Situation where all three measurements, m1, m2 and m3, are affected by
mud filtrate invasion, displayed in red.








 

 

Fig. 3. Situation
where
only one


  measurement,
 
 m3, is affected
 by mud invasion.
 
The axis corresponding to the affected measurement is displayed in red. The other
two axes, corresponding to the measurements m2 and m3 that are not affected by


 
 




  
mud invasion, are displayed in green.



represent the virgin zone only. Therefore, no mud filtrate is

present inside the formation. The situation
where
more meas
(
urements are affected by mud filtrate invasion is shown in Fig.
4. In this case, PCA analysis is used to rotate the measurement
axes to reproduce a situation where only one variate is affected
by mud filtrate invasion, Fig. 5.

Second, we compute the covariance-matrix of the time-lapse






data set as follows:















(2)


where
is a vector whose entries represent the timelapse data set, mi, measurement values for all z = 1,2 , n. R
is a reference to the original non-rotated measurements refer(
ence frame.
Third, this symmetric covariance-matrix
is then expressed in
(
diagonal form in the
corresponding
rotated
eigenvector axis
(
system as:


(
(
(3)

SPRING 2015


SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY



 

Fig. 5. This figure shows how PCA can be applied to identify the principal
components PC1, PC2 and PC3 corresponding to the same time-lapse data set
shown in Fig. 4. After PCA, only one axis, PC1, is affected by mud filtrate
invasion (shown in red), and the other two axes, PC2 and PC3, are effectively
immune to invasion.

where L1, L2 and L3 are the corresponding eigenvalues in general and reflect the magnitude of mud invasion effects in our
case. L is the only non-vanishing eigenvalue (L1) in the case of
mud filtrates invading of gas-bearing formations. (R is a(reference to the rotated measurements reference frame.(
If we refer to the coordinates of the eigenvectors E1, E2 and
E3 in reference frame R as:
(2)


( (

(4)
(2) 

( (2)



then the following relationship between the different covariance-matrices holds correct:
 
 
 

(
(

(5)

and



  

(
(

(6)
(






(
(









is a matrix in which the columns

where
are formed by the coordinates of the eigenvectors.
From a mathematical standpoint, it is strictly identical to
use either the measurements m 1, m2 and m3 for petrophysical



analysis or the corresponding
rotated
variates,
V1,  V2 and V

 3:





   

 

 



(7)













index for
individual minerals and fluids
where X represents an






present.



 
(
 



MX represents
the
endpoints
of
minerals
and fluids
 
  individual


(




present.
 
(
Mfilt represents the endpoint of mud filtrate.
Mffld represents
the endpoint of the native formation fluid
(
 
(
 
(
flushed
by mud filtrate.
(


Volxdrill represents
the volumetric
percentages of minerals and
fluids present at the drill pass time.
(
( minerals and

the volumetric
percentages
of
Volxwipe
represents
 

(
fluids present at the wipe pass time.
filt
Volffld
represents the volumetric (percentage of mud filtrate that

( (
 native formation fluid ffld between
has flushed
the drill pass


and the wipe pass.
(

Therefore,
the covariance matrix can also be re-expressed in

(
 formations as:
gas-bearing


where we simply substitute P-1 = TP for orthogonal rotations.

Consequently,
the constructed variates are now
 
( such that V1
accounts for all the changes between the drill pass and the
 
(
wipe pass, because it is associated with the largest eigenvalue
of the covariance-matrix (Cov(M)), and V2 and V3 remain
effectively unchanged between the drill pass and the wipe pass,
(
 associated with the vanishing

(
because they are
eigenvalues.




Therefore, for all practical purposes, the V2 and V3 variates




can be construed to represent the formation prior to any inva

(13) (






(over the
sion at all. This represents
a step-change improvement

(


situation where all the measurements, m1, m2 and m3, used for



(14)
petrophysical analysis were simultaneously affected by mud fil

trate invasion. It suffices to discard the V1(variate from


(
( the in


Equation 8 follows from the analogy between Eqn. 14 and
puts to petrophysical
analysis and to discard the volumetric

Eqn. 6.
percentage of mud filtrate from the petrophysical analysis un
(
In summary, if the flushed native formation
fluid petrophysknowns to successfully offset earlier concerns arising from the
(
ical properties are known, then( the mud filtrate petrophysical
unknown formation invasion status.
(
 the eigenvector E corresponding

properties can be estimated
In another application,
to
( (and vice versa) from Eqn. 8 as:
1 



the non-vanishing eigenvalue L1 (
L) and the dropped vari


(15)
ate V1 can be used to get a better handle on one or the other of

(

the unknown petrophysical properties of the invading mud filwhere k in this expression represents an unknown factor, to be
trate and the flushed native formation fluid. This is possible
(
 E is actually


approximated rather than determined accurately. The idea here
because the eigenvector
parallel
to the vector
1




(


( the mud filtrate petrophysical properties from
is to infer all
joining the endpoints* (m1)filt, (m2)filt and
(m3)filt of the invad




just one. For example, if the density of the mud filtrate is
ing mud filtrate and (m1)ffld, (m2)ffld and (m3)ffld of the flushed




 fluid: 
(
known,
native formation





( or if we use sodium/potassium (Na/K) mud density to



approximate
the density of the mud filtrate, then the k factor


 
(

( (



can be determined from Eqn. 15 and applied to the other
(8)

petrophysical properties.
(
The methods discussed in this section are relevant to any
Assuming measurements m1, m2 and m3 with linear mixing
 Eqn. 8 simply stems from the fact
( that M can be
number
of measurements including nuclear magnetic resolawsonly,

(
(

re-expressed
as per the following
sums: (
nance (NMR) measurements and fluids.
  
M = Mwipe Mdrill





CASE STUDY SANDSTONE EXAMPLE

(9)
(

(
(
( (10)

The example discussed is from a Permian age gas-bearing

sandstone reservoir10. The reservoir is buried around 15,000 ft
true vertical depth (TVD) and saturated with condensate-rich
gas nonassociated sweet gas condensate. Geological analysis
has divided the reservoir into five main facies: sand dune, sand
sheet, inter-dune, paleosol, and playa lakes. The sand dune and
( are the main productive reservoir units, whereas
sand sheets
the paleosol and playa deposits have low porosity and permeability, and so act as flow barriers. High irreducible water
saturations are encountered in these formations, possibly as




(
(
(

(11)

(

(12)


 (



 (


*The word endpoint
and the associated expression endpoints of minerals and


fluids are used to describe what different measurements would read if only one
mineral or only one fluid was present.











SAUDI ARAMCO
( JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015

high as 70%, as confirmed separately by NMR and formation

testing data. Overprinting the original fabric is a significant
amount of quartz overgrowth, reducing the porosity in a manner that is difficult to predict. From a drilling engineering
perspective, these formations mainly consist of hard and ultraabrasive sandstones interbedded with shales.
Initially, the formate brine drilling fluids were introduced
primarily to avoid the drilling problems associated with barite
weighted muds in high angle wells at high bottom-hole temperatures, as well as to prevent formation damage5, 11-13. The base
mud used typically comprises 76% potassium formate salt
(KCOOH) with 24% fresh water, and it is often weighted with
calcium carbonate as a bridging agent and to achieve desired
mud weight from 98 pcf to 102 pcf. These mud treatment
and optimization operations naturally introduce uncertainties
in the mud properties.
In the present example, the well was drilled at 78 inclination
with approximately 80 pcf Na/K formate water-based mud
(WBM). The well was logged with LWD tools while drilling
(drill pass) and after drilling (wipe pass). Log measurements
available for volumetric formation evaluation (FE) included
neutron porosity (NEUT), formation density (DENS), total
natural gamma ray (TNGR), volumetric photoelectric factor
(UPEF) and propagation resistivity (PRES). The following
sections will describe the effects of Na/K formate mud filtrate
invasion and time-after-bit on log measurements.
The wipe pass log data were acquired over the interval
X,100 ft to X,380 ft MD, Fig. 6. The wipe pass interval corresponds to a clean reservoir section. The LWD data from all
runs were environmentally corrected and depth matched.
The TNGR log was the most visibly affected log between
the drill pass and the wipe pass, followed by the DENS and
NEUT logs. The observed fluid effects on the photoelectric
factor measurement from Na/K formate mud filtrate invasion
are usually negligible, as also reported1, 3, and therefore are
not corrected for invasion.
The drill pass and the wipe pass data were subtracted from
each other, and the data was normalized using the precision of
the different measurements to remove the effects of TNGR,
DENS and NEUT different units of measurement. The computed covariance-matrix of the time-lapse differences was
equal to:

The corresponding eigenvalues and eigenvectors were:

and

The corresponding computed variates, V1, V2 and V3 are

shown in Fig. 7. As expected, only V1 changes between the
drill pass and the wipe pass, and V2 and V3 remain otherwise
(
unchanged.
(
(

SPRING 2015

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

(
(

Fig. 6. Summary of the LWD drill pass and wipe pass log data sets for the
sandstone example. The wipe pass data are displayed in orange in all the tracks.
The tracks, from left to right, display gamma ray (green), deep propagation
resistivity (black), bulk density (red), thermal neutron porosity (blue), and
photoelectric factor (purple) logs, respectively.

Different volumetric FE models using PCA and standard

(STD) volumetric formation models were then considered and
tested for consistency and stability. These different models are
all a combination of a STD model and Shale/bad hole
model as follows:
STD model using resistivity logs
C QWGF/TDNRP
Shale/bad hole model
C Q W / T N R

STD RES ModelC Q W G F / T D N R P

STD model using standalone nuclear logs

C QWGF/TDNP
Shale/bad hole model
C Q W / T N R

STD NUC Model C Q W G F / T D N R P

PCA model using standalone nuclear logs

C Q W G / V2 V3 P
Shale/bad hole model
C Q W / T N R

PCA NUC Model C Q W G / V1 V2 P

where C Q W G F represents the model that solves for clay,

quartz, water, gas or mud filtrate, respectively, and V1 V2 T D
N R P represents the model that uses PCA variates 2 and 3, total natural gamma ray, density, neutron, resistivity or photoelectric logs, respectively.
The principle behind these various models implies that density and neutron measurement crossover can be used to drive
fluid saturations, provided the acquired data can be stripped of
Na/K formate mud filtrate effects; that LWD time-lapse data
acquisition allows accurate suppression of these mud filtrate
invasion effects; that a good photoelectric log is valuable to

Fig. 8. Volumetric interpretation results comparative summary for the sandstone

example. The results for Tracks 1, 2 and 3 were computed using drill pass data,
and the results for Tracks 4, 5 and 6 were computed using wipe pass data. Three
different models were considered for each pass. The results of Tracks 1 and 4
were computed using conventional logs, i.e., solving for mud filtrate volume,
including resistivity in the model. The results for Tracks 2 and 5 were computed
using conventional logs, i.e., solving for mud filtrate volume, but excluding
resistivity. The results for Tracks 3 and 6 were computed using PCA variates, i.e.,
not needing to solve for mud filtrate volume and excluding resistivity.

Fig. 7. Comparative summary of the drill pass vs. wipe pass PCA variates
computed (V1, V2 and V3) for the sandstone example. V1 to V3 reflect the
maximum to the minimum variance present in the time-lapse data set, respectively,
as confirmed by the good overlay of the V2 and V3 curves from the drill pass and
the wipe pass. It is important to validate this overlay to qualify the V2 and V3
curves for invasion independent petrophysical analysis.

infer lithology; and that resistivity measurements are mainly

needed for the shale/bad hole model and may be used to validate the new model results. Figure 8 shows the volumetric
interpretation results from using the various models.
Whether drill passes or wipe passes are concerned; whether
water volumes are computed, including or excluding resistivity
measurements; and whether using projected logs without solving for mud filtrate or using conventional logs and solving for
mud filtrate all the fluid volumetric interpretation results
remain largely unchanged. Although the mud filtrate volume
shows an increase between the drill pass and the wipe pass, the
computed total porosity, mineralogy and water saturation are
consistent despite some of the models not using the resistivity
measurement.
The mud filtrate petrophysical properties required to compute the mud filtrate volume present in tracks 1, 2, 4 and 5 in
Fig. 8 were assigned using the PCA first principal component
and Eqn. 11, assuming a mud filtrate density of 80 pcf.

CASE STUDY CARBONATE EXAMPLE

The example discussed is from a late Permian age gas-bearing
carbonate formation. The formation sediments comprise

limestone, dolomite and anhydrite. The anhydrite is present uniformly throughout the section as a combination of nodules,
mimetic replacement and cement, which is indicative of evaporitic conditions. Deposition occurred in a shallow water environment on an open carbonate slope with a very low angle of
repose and with minimal siliciclastic input.
Three environments of deposition have been suggested. The
first zone occurs offshore in a region where the sea bottom lies
below the zone of wave action and mud is deposited at the relatively undisturbed bottom. The sedimentation rate is low as
temperatures are too low for carbonate mud to precipitate;
therefore, mud is sourced from outside the area. The second
zone is one in which waves interact with the bottom, but very
little mud is deposited as a result of the high water energy. The
material deposited is mainly skeletal debris formed by local
biota. Subsequently, sediments are mainly grainstones and
packstones. Currents cause winnowing and cross-bedding.
Reefs and oolites might also develop in this region. The region
closest to the land is marked by a sharply lower water energy.
Lime mud is deposited in this area and represents shoreward
transport of fines from the skeletal disintegration of grains as
well as the transport of the products of physicochemical precipitation (whitings). Comparable facies to these might form in
environments similar to those found in the Persian Gulf and
the Bahamas. The depositional and diagenetic history of this
reservoir is divided into multiple zones, based on gamma ray
markers, which are assumed to be time lines. Other potential
chronostratigraphic lines, such as paleosols, are apparently
absent. Consequently, these zones have been interpreted as reflecting eustatic changes in the sea level. Studies performed on
the Northern Basin platform and the Central Basin platform in
the Texas Permian Basin have demonstrated the use of extensive, thin, wind-blown silt layers as intraformational seals and
chronostratigraphic markers.
The pay zones lie around 12,000 ft TVD and tested
SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015

nonassociated sour gas in commercial quantities in the 1950s.

Large-scale development of these reserves started in the 1980s,
and different pay zones have been depleted to different extents
by the continued gas production since then. In terms of reservoir
quality, the formation is traditionally subdivided into five major
depositional units that are quite heterogeneous, both laterally
and vertically, with significant diagenetic overprint. The lithology consists predominantly of carbonates that are mixed with
evaporites. The reservoir unit studied in this example has been
further subdivided into five zones. It is approximately 200 ft
thick and consists of mixed grainstone units, each 10 ft to 30
ft thick, with interbedded mudstone and wackestone. Dolomitization is widespread, with some anhydrite present as cement
or pore infilling material. Porosity is in the range 0 pu to 30 pu.
Similar reasons to those quoted in the preceding sandstone
example resulted in the use of Na/K formate WBM as the
drilling fluid of choice in this example, too. Those reasons
included Na/K formates low solids content, lubricity and stabilizing effects on drilling fluid polymers at high temperatures;
reduced mud degradation and formation damage; higher bit
hydraulic horsepower on the bottom, with a lower circulation
rate and pump pressure; improved rate of penetration; reduced
torque and drag in high overbalance and high build rate wells;
and reduced risk of differential sticking and lost bottom-hole
assemblies. In the present example, the well was drilled at 86
inclination with approximately 84 pcf Na/K formate WBM.
A standard LWD triple combo was also run in this well
while drilling (drill pass) and after drilling (wipe pass), and the
log measurements available were NEUT, DENS, TNGR,
UPEF and PRES, as summarized in Fig. 9. The gamma ray
measurement, however, can be driven by the uranium in carbonates in a fashion that is not necessarily indicative of rock
quality. Uranium-bearing minerals are rare but soluble, are
transported easily and can be precipitated far from their
source. The presence of uranium, and the associated higher
gamma ray count rates, can signal, for example, stylolites,
fractures, Super-K or general increases and decreases in quality. In our case, the TNGR trend increasing downwards
did not reflect mineralogy as inferred from the other curves in
Fig. 9, and therefore it was not used for petrophysical analysis.
Time-lapse differences were observed over five different
intervals labeled as Zone 1 to 5 in Fig. 9, and here again the
observed effects of Na/K formate mud filtrate invasion on the
photoelectric factor measurement were negligible. Therefore,
the PCA techniques applied here considered only NEUT and
DENS measurements; the results are summarized in Table 1,
zone by zone. Furthermore, we introduced here another variant whereby these measurements were first converted into the
corresponding apparent porosities PHIN and PHID prior to
PCA:
(

(16)

(17)

(
SPRING 2015

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

Fig. 9. Summary of the LWD drill pass and wipe pass log data sets for the
carbonate example. The wipe pass data are displayed in orange in all tracks. The
tracks, from left to right, display gamma ray (green), deep propagation resistivity
(black), bulk density (red), thermal neutron porosity (blue) and photoelectric
factor (purple) logs, respectively. The intervals labeled Zone 1 to 5 represent the
porous reservoir intervals with mud filtrate invasion effects, which were selected
for PCA.

where NEUTMTX, DENSMTX, NEUTFLD and NEUTMTX in

these expressions represent the reference matrix neutron and
(
density endpoints, and reference fluid neutron
and density endpoints, respectively. The reference matrix and fluid used for
these computations were dolomite and connate water.
This was done to enable V2 along with PC2 (with the least
(
variance) to be re-expressed as something that feels instead like an
apparent porosity PHIA (that is least affected by mud invasion):

(18)(

Equation 18 shows the weighted average of the apparent

neutron measurement PHIN and density measurement PHID.
It should be noted that the different PHIA equations established in Table 1 indicate either different gas composition or
different pressure between the different zones. If one assumes
that the gas composition remains the same and only the pressure changes between zones, then the coefficients of different
PHIA equations can be used to infer the different zones depletion status relative to each other as P5 < P1 = P2 < P4 < P3.

Covariance-matrix

Eigenvalues

Eigenvectors

Variate V2 and PHIA

Zone 1

Zone 2

Zone 3

Zone 4

Zone 5

Zone 1 - 5

Table 1. PCA results in the (PHIN, PHID) reference frame. The results are shown per zone, then for all the zones combined (bottommost line)

This information has not since been verified independently

due to missing formation pressure measurements in this well,
and further work is needed to quantify the uncertainty on such
inferred pressures.
For the remainder of this section, we consider the PCA
results from all the zones combined. Figure 10 shows the drill
pass and the wipe pass density vs. neutron cross plot data.
This figure also displays an additional pair of axes labeled PC1
and PC2, corresponding to the rotated PCA reference frame.
The variates V1 and V2 in the rotated frame are obtained by
taking the coordinates of data points along the PC1 and PC2
axes. Two data points Mdrill and Mwipe, from the drill pass and
the wipe pass at the same depth along the well, were included
to illustrate how this is done and to show how PCA automatically maximizes and minimizes the difference between
drill pass and wipe pass data along PC1 and PC2, respectively.
Figure 11 shows the input and output curves of this computation. As expected, V1 changes a lot between the drill pass
and the wipe pass, whereas V2 or its equivalent PHIA hardly
changes at all.

As V1 is discarded, Fig. 12 shows conceptually how the retained variate, V2, is used for petrophysical analysis, together
with resistivity and photoelectric measurements. Figure 12 also
displays a third axis labeled VW, which represents the volume
of water computed using resistivity assuming Archies
cementation factor and saturation exponent m = n = 2. The
figure has been oriented such that the vertical (PC2, VW) plane
coincides with the plane of the page. In this plane, the
dolomite (DOL) mineral endpoint is located at the origin,
whereas the limestone (LIM) and anhydrite (ANH) endpoints
are located on opposite sides of the PC2 line. The gas (GAS)
and water (H2O) fluid endpoints are also shown. In the case of
the dolomite formation, actual log data points will fall within
the boundaries of the triangle shown in blue, and the position
of such data points relative to the DOL, GAS and H2O endpoints defines the volumetric fraction of dolomite, gas and
water inside the formation.
In practice, lithology is driven by the photoelectric factor,
and the Archies parameters are different from 2, so a nonlinear
solver is routinely used for petrophysical analysis. Also, due to
SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015

Fig. 10. PHID vs. PHIN crossplot. The drill pass and wipe pass data points are
displayed in purple and in orange, respectively. The rotated (PC1, PC2) frame is
shown, together with an example showing the Mdrill and Mwipe coordinates in this
new frame.

Fig. 12. This conceptual schematic demonstrates how V2, together with resistivity
and photoelectric factor measurements, is used for petrophysical analysis. The
(PHID, PHIN) axes (cross plot) are complemented by a third Vw (water volume)
axis, as may be derived from the resistivity measurement. The various axes shown
here are not to scale, and the ANH, DOL, LIM, H2O and GAS endpoints were
included for illustration purposes only. For a DOL, H2O and GAS mixture, for
example, data points will fall within the indicated blue triangle, and vice versa, a
data point within the triangle is interpreted as a unique DOL, H2O and GAS
mixture. The photoelectric factor measurement role is to steer the matrix endpoint
for different mineralogy.

PCA Reservoir Model

LDWG /VRP

PCA Non-Reservoir Model

ALDW /VRP

PCA Model A L D W G V R P

STD model Reservior Model

LDWGM/ NDRP
STD Non-Reservoir model
LDWGM/ NDRP

Fig. 11. PCA input and output curves. The input apparent porosity curves for
PHID and PHIN are shown in Tracks 1 and 2, respectively. The output variates,
V1 and V2, are shown in Tracks 3 and 4. The apparent porosity PHIA, i.e., V2
normalized to feel like an apparent porosity, is shown in Track 5. As can be seen,
V2 mixes PHID and PHIN in a way that cancels the mud invasion effects,
whereas V1 mixes them in a way that boosts the invasion effects and directly
reflects the mud filtrate volume.

the complex lithology nature of this carbonate example, there

are not enough measurements available to solve for all the
minerals and fluids present simultaneously. Therefore, different
PCA and STD volumetric formation models were considered
and combined as follows:
SPRING 2015

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

STD Model A L D W G F / N D R P

where A L D W G M represents the model that solves for anhydrite, limestone, dolomite, water, gas or mud filtrate, respectively, and V N D R P represents the model that uses PCA
variates, neutron, density, resistivity or photoelectric logs,
respectively.
The STD model represents a conventional model that does
not use the PCA variates and so necessitates solving for mud
filtrate. Similar to the sandstone example, the PCA first principal component and Eqn. 11 were also used in this carbonate
example to estimate the mud filtrate petrophysical properties,
assuming a mud filtrate density of 84 pcf. Figure 13 shows the
petrophysical analysis results from both the PCA and the STD
models, for both the drill pass and the wipe pass. Again, these
results are consistent with each other, except for water volumes and thereby saturations when using resistivity
measurements from the wipe pass that are affected by deep
mud invasion. In particular, the total porosity and the mineralogy remained consistent, independent of the Na/K mud filtrates
displacing of gas between passes.

Fig. 13. Comparative volumetric interpretation results from different models and
passes for the carbonate example. Computed porosity and water volume from all
four passes are displayed in the rightmost track. All four porosity curves are in
excellent agreement, whereas the water volume curves from the wipe pass show
an increase over the drill pass, due to mud invasion effects on the resistivity
measurement.

CONCLUSIONS
Two examples were presented that describe PCA applications
to LWD TLA&A. The sandstone example used 3D PCA, and
the carbonate example used 2D PCA. In these examples, PCA
appears to be the mathematical tool of choice to automatically
reveal the structure and the dimensionality of the LWD time-lapse
data set. The identified principal components represent a rotated
coordinate system whose axes are oriented along the directions
of maximum and minimum change between the drill pass and
the wipe pass. The variates corresponding to the directions of
minimum change represent measurements that are effectively
immune to mud invasion. Therefore, they can be considered to
represent the formation prior to any invasion and can be used
for petrophysical analysis without including mud filtrate in the
corresponding formation model. This effectively eliminates the
requirement for the mud filtrate petrophysical properties to be
known in advance.
The sandstone example included results from six different

petrophysical models using different combinations, depending

on whether the drill pass or the wipe pass data were processed;
whether the conventional log measurements or the PCA variates
associated with the minimum eigenvalues were used as input,
i.e., whether mud filtrate was taken into account or not; and
whether resistivity measurements were included or excluded
from the models. The fluid volumetric interpretation results
from these six models remained largely unchanged, although
in general higher apparent water saturation would be naturally
computed when working with the wipe pass data that included
resistivity measurements affected by mud invasion.
The consistent results among the models lend credibility to
using the PCA variates associated with the minimum eigenvalues for petrophysical analysis instead of the conventional log
measurements, irrespective of the formation invasion status
and mud filtrate petrophysical properties, and independent of
resistivity measurements. Consequently, it should be noted that
these results were established in the case of gas-bearing formations drilled with Na/K formate mud, and other situations will
require further work, depending also on the log measurements
available.
The carbonate example was also successfully processed using
PCA techniques, but the situation was different because the total natural gamma ray log measurement was not used among
the inputs. PCA applied to the neutron porosity and formation
density log measurements resulted accordingly in a single variate associated with only the minimum eigenvalue. Therefore,
resistivity measurements were required in all the models considered under this example, unlike in the sandstone example,
which treated resistivity measurements as redundant or optional.
The differences between the two examples highlights that different situations are often encountered in practice and need to
be handled appropriately to extract the maximum value.
Finally, one cannot stress enough the importance of good
quality LWD time-lapse data sets. The larger the differences
between the drill pass and the wipe pass data, the more accurate are the results. This entails acquiring the drill pass as early
as possible after the formation has been drilled and acquiring
the wipe pass as late as possible. In particular, borehole deterioration at the time of the wipe pass is detrimental to LWD
TLA&A. Moreover, the drill pass and the wipe pass data
should be acquired using the same logging tool, to cancel out
accuracy effects when computing the time-lapse data set and to
eliminate the adverse effects of tool-to-tool variations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the management of Saudi
Aramco for their support and permission to publish this article.
This article was presented at the Abu Dhabi International
Petroleum Exhibition and Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE,
November 10-13, 2014.

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015

REFERENCES
1. Phillips, J.: Report on the Prediction of the Impact of KFormate Fluid on Logging Responses, Technical Report,
Schlumberger DCS, Bergen, Norway, 2001 (unpublished).
2. Al-Harbi, A.A., Ersoz, H. and AbdRabAlreda, S.H.:
Influence of Sodium/Potassium Formate-Based Drilling
Fluids on Nuclear Logs, SPE paper 94693, presented at
the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum
Engineering Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2023, 2005.
3. Galford, J., Truax, J. and Moake, G.L.: Borehole and
Formation Invasion Effects of Formate-based Mud
Systems, SPWLA paper, presented at the SPWLA 46th
Annual Logging Symposium, New Orleans, Louisiana,
June 26-29, 2005.
4. Pedersen, B.K., Pedersen, E.S., Morriss, S., Constable,
M.V., Vissapragada, B., Sibbit, A., et al.: Understanding
the Effects of Cesium/Potassium Formate Fluid on Well
Log Response A Case Study of the Kristin and
Kvitebjrn Fields, Offshore Norway, SPE paper 103067,
presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, September 24-27, 2006.
5. Bert, P.C., Pedersen, E.S., Lauritsen, A., Behjat, N.,
Hagerup-Jenssen, S., Howard, S.K., Olsvik, G., et al.:
Drilling, Completion, and Open Hole Formation
Evaluation of High Angle Wells in High Density Cesium
Formate Brine: The Kvitebjrn Experience, 2004-2006,
SPE paper 105733, presented at the SPE/IADC Drilling
Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, February 20-22,
2007.
6. Simpson, M.A., Al-Reda, S.A., Forman, D., Guzman, J.,
Al-Fawzy, M. and Vice, P.: Application and Recycling of
Sodium and Potassium Formate Brine Drilling Fluids for
Ghawar Field HPHT Gas Wells, OTC paper 19801,
presented at the Offshore Technology Conference,
Houston, Texas, May 4-7, 2009.
7. Kho, D., Grau, J., Khan, B., Ammar, H., Al-Anzi, E.H. and
Acharya, M.: Solving Formation Evaluation Challenges in
a Potassium Formate Mud Environment A Kuwait Case
Study of Using Neutron Induced Gamma Ray Spectroscopy
Data in a Complex Carbonate Reservoir, SPWLA paper,
presented at the SPWLA 51st Annual Logging Symposium,
Perth, Australia, June 19-23, 2010.
8. Kraishan, G.M., Al-Belowi, A.R., Ab Rahim, Z.B., Gzara,
K., Minh, C.C., Jain, V., et al.: Fluid Typing in Variable
Water Salinity Environments: Application of Geodesic
Transformations of LWD Time-Lapse Measurements,
SPWLA paper, presented at the SPWLA 55th Annual
Logging Symposium, Abu Dhabi, UAE, May 18-22, 2014.

SPRING 2015

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

9. Fakolujo, K.M., Al-Belowi, A.R., Gzara, K. and Onuigbo,

O.L.: Petrophysical Evaluation of Deep Sandstone GasBearing Reservoirs Using LWD Time-Independent Logs
Paradigm, SPE paper 171491, presented at the SPE Asia
Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Adelaide,
Australia, October 14-16, 2014.
10. Al-Anazi, H.D., Al-Qahtani, A.A., Rahim, A., Masrahy,
M., Al-Malki, B.H. and Al-Kanaan, A.A.: Selecting
Optimum Completion Strategy Examples from Saudi
Arabias Unconsolidated Unayzah Reservoir, SPE paper
149058, presented at the SPE/DGS Saudi Arabia Section
Technical Symposium and Exhibition, al-Khobar, Saudi
Arabia, May 15-18, 2011.
11. Downs, J.D.: Drilling and Completing Difficult HP/HT
Wells with the Aid of Cesium Formate Brines A
Performance Review, SPE paper 99068, presented at the
SPE/IADC Drilling Conference, Miami, Florida, February
21-23, 2006.
12. Downs, J.D.: A Review of the Impact of the Use of
Formate Brines on the Economics of Deep Gas Field
Development Projects, SPE paper 130376, presented at
the SPE Deep Gas Conference and Exhibition, Manama,
Bahrain, January 24-26, 2010.
13. Simpson, M.A., Al-Reda, S.A., Al-Khamees, S.A., Zhou,
S., Treece, M. and Ansari, S.: Overbalanced Drilling of
Horizontal Reservoir Sections with Potassium Formate
Brines, SPE paper 92407, presented at the SPE Middle
East Oil and Gas Show and Conference, Manama,
Bahrain, March 12-15, 2005.

BIOGRAPHIES
Kehinde Kenny M. Fakolujo joined
Saudi Aramco in 2009 as a Senior
Petrophysicist and is currently the Lead
Engineer for the satellite gas fields in
the Gas Development Petrophysics Unit
of the Reservoir Description and
Simulation Department. He has more
than 18 years of industry experience, serving in international assignments to the Netherlands and the U.S. prior
to joining Saudi Aramco. Kenny started his career with
Shell E&P Company, where he worked at various times as
a Petrophysicist in operations, assets and development. He
concentrated on integrated reservoir modeling, resistivity
inversion, electrofacies modeling, core log data integration,
uncertainty and value of information analysis, and thin bed
and shaly sand evaluation using industry approved
standard evaluation and interpretation software packages.
His current areas of interest and specialization include
development of a formation evaluation while drilling tool
for use in slim hole underbalanced wells and the impact of
a formate mud system on wireline log response in both
clastic and carbonate reservoirs.
Kenny is a member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE) and is the Vice President of Membership
for the Saudi Arabia Chapter of the Society of
Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts (SPWLA).
He received his B.S. degree (with honors) in Physics
with a specialization in Solid State Physics from Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Ali R. Al-Belowi is the Supervisor for
the Southern Area Petrophysics Unit in
the Reservoir Description and
Simulation Department at Saudi
Aramco. He is responsible for ensuring
that open hole and cased hole logging
programs are optimized, quality log
data are acquired, and logs are analyzed on time utilizing
fit-for-purpose petrophysics methods. Ali has done
extensive work on petrophysical analysis in both
exploration and development fields.
He joined Saudi Aramco in August 1989 as a Petroleum
Engineer after receiving his B.S. degree in Petroleum
Engineering from King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia.
Kais Gzara is a Schlumberger LoggingWhile-Drilling (LWD) Domain
Champion for the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia GeoMarket region. He joined
the company in 1990 as a Wireline
Field Engineer in Italy and Libya. Kais
later worked for Schlumberger as a
District Petrophysicist in West Africa; as a Drilling
Planning and Interpretation Engineer at the Sugar Land
Product Center; as the Sales and Customer Support
Manager in Port Harcourt, Nigeria; as the Geology and

Rock Physics Program Manager at the Schlumberger

Dhahran Carbonate Research Center; as a Technical Sales
Manager in Luanda, Angola; and as the LWD Domain
Champion and Business Development Manager for the
Emirates, Oman and Pakistan GeoMarket, and the Nigeria
GeoMarket regions. He has also worked for RasGas as
head of the petrophysics operations in Doha, Qatar.
Kais has more than 17 patents to his credit.
He received a Diplme dIngnieur Polytechnicien from
the cole Polytechnique in Paris, and an M.A. degree in
Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ.
Oluchukwu L. Onuigbo is a
Schlumberger Logging-While-Drilling
Domain Champion for the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia GeoMarket region. He
joined the petroleum industry in 1982
as a well site Geologist. Oluchukwu
later worked as a production geologist
for Shell Petroleum Development Company in Nigeria and
Shell International Exploration and Production Company
in Holland.
When he joined Schlumberger in 1997, Oluchukwu
worked as an Interpretation and Development Geologist in
Nigeria and as a Petrophysicist in Russia, Yemen and
Qatar.
He has written and published several technical papers
for the European Association of Geoscientists and
Engineers (EAGE) and the Society of Petrophysicists and
Well Log Analysts (SPWLA).
Oluchukwu received his B.S. degree in Geology from
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.
Ihsan T. Pasaribu is a Senior
Petrophysics Engineer and LoggingWhile-Drilling (LWD) Domain
Champion with Schlumberger,
currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
He began his career in the oil industry
in 2002 at Schlumberger. For the first 6
years of his career in the company, his experience included
logging while drilling (LWD) operations and a management
role in the West Africa region. Ihsan worked as a LWD
Petrophysics Engineer and Well Placement Engineer in
Angola in 2008 and on various other projects in the region.
From 2009 to 2011, he was the LWD and Well Placement
Domain Champion for the Central-West Africa region.
Following that assignment, Ihsan moved to the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia as the LWD Petrophysics Domain Champion
until 2013.
He received his M.Eng. degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

SAUDI ARAMCO JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2015