Determination of reservoir heterogeneity
AssigneeSaudi Arabian Oil Company
InventorsJi Soo Lee, Gary Eppler
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods for determining reservoir characteristics of a well can include receiving a first core from the well; performing an experiment to determine the wave velocity associated with a first direction of the first core, the experiment including: transmitting an ultrasonic wave through the first core in the first direction; receiving the transmitted ultrasonic wave; and determining a directional wave velocity of the first core based on the transmitted ultrasonic wave and the received transmitted ultrasonic wave, wherein the directional wave velocity represents a wave velocity along the first direction; rotating the first core about a longitudinal axis of the first core; and performing the experiment along a second direction of the first core.
Claims20
A method for determining a reservoir characteristic of a subsurface formation, the method comprising:
- receiving a first core taken from the subsurface formation;
- determining an acoustic wave velocity associated with each of a plurality of directions extending diametrically across the first core by:
- transmitting an ultrasonic wave through the first core along a first direction of the plurality of directions;
- receiving the transmitted ultrasonic wave;
- determining the acoustic wave velocity associated with the first direction based on an arrival time of the transmitted ultrasonic wave;
- and
- rotating the first core about a longitudinal axis of the first core from the first direction to a second direction of the plurality of directions;
- determining a normalized acoustic wave velocity for each of the plurality of directions based on a difference of the determined acoustic wave velocity associated with a respective direction minus a minimum acoustic wave velocity of the acoustic wave velocities for all directions of the plurality of directions;
- and
- determining the reservoir characteristic of the subsurface formation based on the determined normalized acoustic wave velocity associated with each of the plurality of directions.
A method for determining a reservoir characteristic of a subsurface formation, the method comprising:
- receiving a first core taken from the subsurface formation;
- determining an acoustic wave velocity associated with each of a plurality of directions extending diametrically across the first core by:
- transmitting an ultrasonic wave through the first core along a first direction of the plurality of directions;
- receiving the transmitted ultrasonic wave;
- determining the acoustic wave velocity associated with the first direction based on an arrival time of the transmitted ultrasonic wave;
- and
- rotating the first core about a longitudinal axis of the first core from the first direction to a second direction of the plurality of directions;
- determining a normalized acoustic wave velocity for each of the plurality of directions based on a difference of each determined wave velocity associated with a respective direction minus a maximum wave velocity of the wave velocities for all directions of the plurality of directions;
- and
- determining the reservoir characteristic of the subsurface formation based on the determined normalized acoustic wave velocity associated with each of the plurality of directions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.