A Practical Method to Calculate and Model the Petrophysical Properties of Reservoir Rock Using Petrel Software: A case Study from Iraq

Abstract

Nasiriyah oilfield is located in the southern part of Iraq. It represents one of the promising oilfields. Mishrif Formation is considered as the main oil-bearing carbonate reservoir in Nasiriyah oilfield, containing heavy oil (API 25^o(. The study aimed to calculate and model the petrophysical properties and build a three dimensional geological model for Mishrif Formation, thus estimating the oil reserve accurately and detecting the optimum locations for hydrocarbon production.

Fourteen vertical oil wells were adopted for constructing the structural and petrophysical models. The available well logs data, including density, neutron, sonic, gamma ray, self-potential, caliper and resistivity logs were used to calculate the petrophysical properties. The interpretations and environmental corrections of these logs were performed by applying Techlog 2015 software. According to the petrophysical properties analysis, Mishrif Formation was divided into five units (Mishrif Top, MA, shale bed, MB1 and MB2).    A three-dimensional geological model, which represents an entrance for the simulation process to predict reservoir behavior under different hydrocarbon recovery scenarios, was carried out by employing Petrel 2016 software. Models for reservoir characteristics (porosity, permeability, net to gross NTG and water saturation) were created using the algorithm of Sequential Gaussian Simulation (SGS), while the variogram analysis was utilized as an aid to distribute petrophysical properties among the wells.

     The process showed that the main reservoir unit of Mishrif Formation is MB1 with a high average porosity of 20.88% and a low average water saturation of 16.9%. MB2 unit has good reservoir properties characterized by a high average water saturation of 96.25%, while MA was interpreted as a water-bearing unit. The impermeable shale bed unit is intercalated between MA and MB1 units with a thickness of 5-18 m, whereas Mishrif top was interpreted as a cap unit. The study outcomes demonstrated that the distribution accuracy of the petrophysical properties has a significant impact on the constructed geological model which provided a better understanding of the study area’s geological construction. Thus, the estimated reserve h was calculated to be about 7945 MSTB. This can support future reservoir development plans and performance predictions.