An Introduction to the History of NMR

Well Logging
ROBERT L. KLEINBERG,1 JASPER A. JACKSON2
1

Schlumberger-Doll Research, Old Quarry Road,

Ridgeeld, Connecticut 06877; email: kleinberg@ridgeeld.
sdr.slb.com.
2
Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired); e-mail: jajbsj
@home.com.
KEY WORDS: NMR; NMR well logging; NMR
history; borehole NMR

range. (1) Only proton NMR has been employed

to date and (2) because the elds are weak
and relatively inhomogeneous, chemical shifts are
not observable; hence, all information is obtained
from relaxation data.
The history of borehole NMR instrumentation has four main institutional participants:
Chevron Corporation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NUMAR Corporation, and Schlumberger
Ltd. Although each institution has had different
long-term goals and imperatives, their immediate objective was the sameto develop a com-

Although nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)

well logging is almost as old as NMR itself, it is
unknown to a large segment of the NMR community. New techniques, developed in the last
two decades, have made made this technology
an indispensable tool in the petroleum industry,
similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in
medicine. It was recognized at an early date that
nuclear magnetic resonance could contribute to
the in situ investigation of earth formations. Laboratory NMR studies of uids in rocks, on clays,
and in other porous media started in the 1950s at a
number of oil company research laboratories, most
notably those of Chevron, Mobil, and Shell. More
than three dozen patent applications for borehole
NMR devices were led between 1948 and 1960,
representing work sponsored by Chevron, Schlumberger, Mobil, Texaco, and Varian.
Measuring properties of earth formations
in situ by nuclear magnetic resonance obviously
requires apparatus much different than that commonly used in the laboratory. Instead of placing the sample inside the apparatus, the apparatus is placed inside the sample, which is, in
fact, the earth. Thus inside-out NMR equipment is required: large static magnetic elds and
high frequency oscillatory magnetic elds must be
projected outside of the apparatus and into the
surrounding rock formations. Figure I-1 shows the
scale of the MRIL NMR logging tool.
Due to the relatively weak B0 elds used in
well logging, two points should be claried for the
benet of NMR spectroscopists and others accustomed to working with magnetic elds in the tesla
Received 21 June 2001; accepted 22 June 2001.
Present address: J. A. Jackson, 6 Woodleaf Avenue, Redwood City, California 94061.
Concepts in Magnetic Resonance, Vol. 13(6), 340342 (2001)
2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

340

Figure I-1

Scale of the MRIL NMR logging tool.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF NMR WELL LOGGING

341

Table I-1 Timeline of NMR Logging

1946
1948
1950
1952
1953
1954
1956
1960
1960s
1960s
1978
1978
1980
1983
1984
1985
1985
1989
1990
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1990s
2000

Discovery of NMR by Bloch (Stanford) and Purcell (Harvard)

Russell Varian les patent for Earths-eld NMR magnetometer
Spin echo, Hahn (U. of Illinois)
Russell Varian les patent for Earths-eld NMR well logging
Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Bloch and Purcell
Carr and Purcell devise spin-echo pulse train
Harold Schwede (Schlumberger) les patent application for permanent magnet well logging tool
Discovery of reduced uid relaxation time in porous media by Brown, Fatt, and others
First Earths-eld NML toolChevron Research Lab and collaborators
Laboratory and theoretical studies in various university and petroleum laboratories of the effect of
restricted diffusion on T1 , and relationship of T1 and permeability
Several companies offer NML commercial logging service
NML fails to live up to advance billing; NML gains bad reputation in petroleum industry
Schlumberger introduces new, improved NML tool
Jackson at Los Alamos, invents rst inside-out pulsed RF NMR logging technique
Laboratory demonstration of Los Alamos technique
Proof-of-principle demonstration of Los Alamos logging technique at Houston API test pit
NUMAR formed to commercialize advances in medical NMR technology
Schlumberger begins development of permanent magnet/pulsed NMR technique
NUMAR obtains license for Los Alamos inside-out NMR patent
NUMALOG demonstrates increased S/N for new magnet/RF scheme in laboratory scale model
First eld test of full scale NUMAR logging tool in Conoco test hole, Ponca City, OK
NUMAR announces commercial availability of MRIL logging service based on Series B single frequency
tool
Schlumberger starts eld test of skid-type pulsed NMR tool
Numar and Western Atlas sign cooperative agreement for MRIL services
NUMAR introduces dual frequency MRIL Series C tool
Western Atlas logs MRIL in combination with conventional tools
Schlumberger announces commercial introduction of CMR tool
Peoples Republic of China purchases two logging systems from Western Atlas, including MRIL
NUMAR and Halliburton sign cooperative agreement for MRIL services
Halliburton buys NUMAR
Laboratory and theoretical studies of the effect of restricted diffusion on T2 (most NMR logging data
use T2 )
NMR logging-while-drilling prototype

mercially viable oil well measurement instrument.

All four groups not only developed instrumentation, but also made major contributions to understanding the basic science of the NMR of uids
in rocks and to developing novel methods suited
to the peculiar demands of the oileld environment. Although the authors herein have written
four independent histories, they have tried to show
how the four stories overlap and interact with each
other.
The background of this saga involves several laboratories and players, many with names
well known in NMR, e.g., Varian, Bloembergen, Bloch, and Torrey. In addition, personnel
at major oil company labs were active in fundamental studies of the NMR properties of uids
in porous media as applied to the interpretation

of NMR logging data. These include, in addition

to R. J. S. Brown and his colleagues at Chevron
as described in the rst article in Part 1, Harold
Vinegar, J. D. Loren, and Joseph D. Robinson
at Shell, John Zimmerman and Don Woessner at
Mobil, and Gerhard Herzog and C. W. Wilson at
Texaco.
The story starts soon after the 1946 discovery of NMR by Bloch and Purcell. In 1948,
Russell Varian proposed using the Earths magnetic eld to detect proton NMR, and in 1952, he
led a patent application to use this phenomenon
in well logging. Nuclear magnetic logging using the
Earths eld, (NML), was developed most intensively rst by Chevron in the 1950s and 1960s,
and later by Schlumberger. NML was never commercially successful, but the supporting research

342

THE HISTORY OF NMR WELL LOGGING

into the NMR properties of uids in porous

media laid a rm fundamental basis for interpretation of NMR relaxation in later NMR logging data. These developments are described in
Part 1.
The next technological development was
the invention, at Los Alamos, of permanent
magnet/pulsed radio frequency (RF) NMR well
logging in 1978. This technique used permanent
magnets to produce a B0 eld in the geologic
formations surrounding the borehole and used
pulsed RF to manipulate the nuclear spin system of formation uids. Laboratory tests of this
technique were followed by a proof-of-principle
demonstration in 1983. This is described in
Part 2.
The Los Alamos discovery was followed, in the
1980s by two new techniques, one at NUMAR
(now Halliburton) and the other at Schlumberger.
Each used the permanent magnet/pulsed RF concept, but implemented it in different magnet/coil
congurations. Both give valuable geophysical
information and are in regular commercial use
in the petroleum industry. The NUMAR and
Schlumberger stories are told in Parts 3 and 4,
respectively.
These new logging tools have led to new procedures to extract information on properties of
reservoir uids. These are described in Part 5.
Part 6 describes a new development, NMR
logging-while-drilling (LWD), in which the NMR
instrument is an integral part of the drill string
and is located just above the drill bit.
Table I-1 gives a timeline of these developments.
The story of NMR applied to problems of geophysical interest is much larger than that presented here. For example, an excellent review of
the laboratory work on the NMR of minerals and
rocks may be found in Early Days of NMR in the
Southwest by D. E. Woessner (1). Review articles
and bibliographies on the principles and methods
of NMR well logging are included in references at
the ends of the various articles. A brief glossary
is provided for the readers convenience following
the reference.

REFERENCE
1. Woessner DE. Early days of NMR in the Southwest.
Concepts Magn Reson 2001; 13:77102.

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Well Logging Overview

ROBERT L. KLEINBERG
Schlumberger-Doll Research, Old Quarry Road,
Ridgeeld, Connecticut 06877;
e-mail: kleinberg@ridgeeld.sdr.slb.com
KEY WORDS: NMR; well logging; geophysical

NMR; petrophysical NMR; petroleum industry;

oil and gas

Well logging is the means by which physical properties of subsurface earth formations are
measured in situ. The most important, and the
most technically challenging, application of well
logging is to the characterization of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Oil and gas are found up to 10
km underground in beds of sedimentary or other
porous rock. Only part of a typical sedimentary
rock is solid mineral matter. The pore space,
which accounts for up to 30% of the volume, can
be lled by combinations of oil, water, or natural gas. Well logging is directed toward understanding these uids and their relationship to
the solid mineral matrix. A large variety of electromagnetic, acoustic, and nuclear borehole
instruments are used for various purposes. Each
technique has drawbacks and limitations, and no
one logging device (tool) is adequate to give a
complete description of an earth formation (2, 3).
The borehole environment is unusually harsh.
Boreholes drilled to extract oil or gas are typically 20 cm in diameter and 110 km deep. The
geothermal gradient of the earth can give rise to
temperatures of 175 C or more and pressures that
range to 140 MPa. Borehole logging tools must
not only survive but must make quantitative measurements under these conditions. The requirements on electronic components exceed military
specications by a wide margin.
Well logging tools must be rugged enough to
survive transport in arctic, tropical, desert, and
marine environments, and shocks up to 100 g.
They must survive the vibration and abrasion
that result from being dragged over kilometers
of rough rock face in the well bore. They must
comply with laws that regulate transport by aircraft and helicopter, which is of particular significance for NMR equipment that contains strong
permanent magnets. The conditions and space
constraints are in many respects more severe than
Received 21 June 2001; accepted 22 June 2001.