WELCOME TO

CRAIN'S PETROPHYSICAL

HANDBOOK

Please be fair to the author. Pay your Shareware fee HERE, and receive the CD-ROM at no extra
cost.

SPECIAL CASES -- TIGHT GAS RESERVOIRS

Tight Gas Basics Geology Shale Volume Porosity Water
Saturation Permeability
Lithology
Pyrite Corrections
Tight Gas Example

TIGHT GAS BASICS

Most of us are familiar with traditional tight gas reservoirs
clean, low porosity sandstones or siltstones that look
unattractive on log analysis, at least by the conventional
wisdom of the 1960s. Porosity averages from 5 to 10% with
permeability between 0.01 and 5 mD. The best know play of
this type is the Alberta Deep Basin, developed in the 1970's
and 1980's, and still an area of interest today.
This particular tight gas play is called a basin-centered gas
accumulation - the trapping mechanism is not structural or stratigraphic, but a "water block"
above the gas caused by low relative permeability. There is considerable exploration and
development effort being expended on such plays today, especially in the USA, Europe, and the
Middle East.
With the steady improvement in massive fracturing jobs, pioneered in
the Deep Basin, and in horizontal well placement, even tighter, lower
porosity gas zones are now economically feasible. These have
porosities that may average 3 to 6% and permeabilities from below a
microDarcy to a few milliDarcies. The Doig and Montney in Alberta
and northeast BC are examples. Both are radioactive due to uranium
and have often been called shales, even though the average grain size
is above 4 microns and there is little clay mineral or clay sized
particles. The organic content is fairly low (1 to 3% TOC) so there is
little adsorbed gas. They do not qualify as "shale gas" until 67% of the
particles are less than 4 microns.
Some tight gas plays have a significant liquids component. Such wells
are highly desirable due to the price differential between gas and oil.
Unfortunately, log analysis cannot partition gas from oil at these low
porosities so tight rock core analysis and petrographic analysis are
important tools. Mineralogy and clay content are highly variable so
XRD analysis is also vital.
<== Alberta Deep Basin strat chart, showing gas producing reservoirs,
circa 1981. Note that Montney was not among the productive category
at that time.

The petrophysical model uses conventional log measurements with conventional shale corrected
density neutron complex lithology porosity model to handle quartz plus heavy minerals. A shale
corrected water saturation equation, such as the Simandoux or Dual Water models are used.
Most zones in a tight gas environment produce little water except at the updip edge, so RW is
actually derived from pre-determined water saturation values found by capillary pressure
measurements. A table of RW values and a stratigraphic chart for the Deep Basin play were
published in "Log Evaluation Results in the Deep Basin Area of Alberta", by E. R. Crain,
Transactions: 8th Formation Evaluation Symposium, CWLS, Calgary, September 1981.
Saturation exponents are often default values (A = 1.0, M = N = 2.0) because not very many
electrical properties measurements have been reported. Lower values of M = N = 1.7 or 1.8 may be
needed to force calculated water saturation to match core analysis or capillary pressure minimum
water saturation.

Tight Gas example showing core porosity (black dots), core oil saturation (red dots). core water
saturation (blue dots), and permeability (red dots). Note excellent agreement between log analysis
and core data. Separation between red dots and blue water saturation curve indicates significant
moveable gas. The core analysis shows considerable residual oil - some of this may be moveable,
in addition to any condensate carried in the gas. This is a relatively high grade example with
porosity between 5 and 6% and permeability between 0.1 and 0.8 mD. Grid lines are 1 meter
spacing.
NOTE the high uranium content (left hand curve in Track 1) is in the middle of the best pay.
Without the Thorium curve, this interval would look shalier and it would be difficult to match
core porosity using the total gamma ray as a shale indicator.
RUN THE SPECTRAL GAMMA RAY LOG TO ELIMINATE THIS PROBLEM.

GEOLOGY OF TIGHT GAS

The geology of most tight gas plays, whether old fashioned like the Alberta Deep Basin, or the
new "really-tight" plays is slightly more complicated than conventional gas plays, although the
two can combine or grade into each other. One of the better descriptions is in "Tight Gas
Reservoirs An Unconventional Natural Energy Source for the Future", by G. C.Naik, SPE 2003.
Naik describes four criteria that define
basin-centered gas accumulations like
the Alberta Deep Basin, including low
permeability, abnormal pressure, gas
saturated reservoirs and no down dip
water leg. Later he mentions the updip
water block that traps the gas, as
proposed by Masters and Gray in the late
1970's.But not all tight gas is a basincentered accumulation, so different
concepts apply in different areas.
The illustration at the right attempts to
show the difference between
conventional and unconventional basin
centered gas accumulations. The red interval acts as an updip water block, with gas below it in
unconventional traps, with conventional traps above the seal. Master and Gray wrote that the
water block is transitional over a 5 to 10 mile wide band and is not related to a structural or
stratigraphic boundary.

Masters and Gray explained this phenomenon by

showing where the water block and gas reservoirs
fit on the relative permeability curve for the gas water system, as shown on the left. Little water is
produced in the gas zones, regardless of water
saturation, due to the low relative permeability of
the water phase.
The concept of a water block merely means that
irreducible water saturation is very high. On log
analysis depth plots, this looks like "water over
gas", which cannot happen in a conventional
reservoir. The result looks like an upside-down
transition zone.
Basin margin gas traps, as in the Cretaceous of
south eastern Alberta, are relatively low porosity,
low permeability plays, but are not now
considered to be unconventional. They do not
have a water block as a seal and occur in normal
stratigraphic traps. The gas is biogenic (formed
from kerogen in situ). Gas does not migrate far
from its source.
Their behaviour is sometimes a little unusual, depending again on the relative permeability
curves.
According to Naik's paper "In a traditional reservoir, there is relative permeability in excess of 2%
to one or both fluid phases across a wide range of water saturation. Further, in traditional
reservoir, critical water saturation and irreducible water saturation occur at similar values of water
saturation. Under these conditions, the absence of widespread water production commonly
implies that a reservoir system is at, or near, irreducible water saturation. In low-permeability
reservoirs, however, irreducible water saturation and critical water saturation can be dramatically
different. In traditional reservoir, there is a wide range of water saturations at which both water
and gas can flow. In low-permeability reservoirs, there is a broad range of water saturations in
which neither gas nor water can flow. In some very low-permeability reservoir, there is virtually no
mobile water phase even at very high water saturations."

Comparison of capillary pressure and relative permeability curves for conventional gas (left) and
tight gas (right) showing a large water saturation range in tight gas reservoirs over which no gas
or water will flow.
The Montney distal shelf (tight gas) play has become one of the hottest natural gas resource
plays in the WCSB. Horizontal drilling and multi-stage frac technology have been the key to

unlocking the resources and placing the Montney in the top three most economic resource plays
in North America. Industry analysts estimate upward of 5,000 horizontal wells will be drilled in the
upcoming decades, with a capital outlay approaching $30 billion.
To illustrate petrophysical analysis of tight gas sands, we will use the Montney as the classic
example of the problems and solutions. Some of those problems are radioactivity from uranium
associated with kerogen, highly variable mineralogy, very fine grained texture, and several
hydrocarbon types that are difficult to segregate.
Most tight gas sands have a wide variety of rock textures and mineral compositions vertically in
the wellbore as well as laterally between wells or along the track of horizontal wells. Trying to find
"sweet spots" and steering along them is a challenging task. The illustration below shows
microphotos of four distinct facies in the Montney from west east across west central Alberta.
Porosity, grain size, saturation, and permeability vary considerably.

Photo micrographs of Montney facies. The

stratigraphic cross section is also complicated so
correlation across long distances is somewhat
difficult.

SHALE VOLUME CALCULATIONS IN

TIGHT GAS
Many tight sands are radioactive due mainly to
uranium associated with phosphates or kerogen. This
can be identified with a spectral gamma ray log and it
should always be run when penetrating radioactive

sands. Sadly, it is often not requested, even though the service is cheap and costs no extra rig
time.
Spectral gamma ray log shows Uranium (U), Potassium (K), Thorium (Th), and standard gamma
ray (GR). Red vertical line is TH0, the clean line for the Thorium curve, and the black vertical line is
GR0, the clean line for the GR curve. ==>
The Thorium curve is best for shale volume calculations. The SP is flat and useless, Density
neutron separation is mostly due to dolomite and other heavy minerals so it cannot be used. The
gamma ray can be used in the absence of the Thorium curve by assuming Uranium content is
constant.
1: VSHth = (TH - TH0) / (TH100 - TH0)
2: VSHgr = (GR - GR0) / (GR100 - GR0)
The Clavier correction to the gamma ray result is often used to smooth out minor variations in
uranium content that make the gamma ray look "noisy":
3: VSHclavier = 1.7 - (3.38 - (VSHgr + 0.7) ^ 2) ^ 0.5
Choose VSHth in preference to VSHgr or VSHclavier when the thorium curve is available. This
becomes Vsh for all future calculations.
The clean lines TH0 and GR0 are easy to pick (red and black lines on the illustration). Shale lines
are harder as they are often off-scale to the right or buried under a plethora of backup curves. In
the absence of a good pick from the log, use:
4: TH100 = TH0 + 25
5: GR100 = GR0 + 150
Adjust the constants to suit your local knowledge.
Calculation of porosity is very sensitive to the shale volume in tight gas sands, so it is critical to
calibrate Vsh from logs with clay volume from bulk XRD data sets or tables of petrographic thin
section point counts. A difference of a few percent clay can mean the difference between NO PAY
and ALL PAY.

POROSITY CALCULATIONS IN TIGHT GAS

Even though most tight gas sands are a complex mixture of quartz, dolomite, calcite, and
sometimes pyrite, with a little clay, the standard density neutron complex lithology crossplot
model works well most of the time. However a correction for kerogen needs to be made to the
data if any is present:
6: PHIdc = PHID (Vsh * PHIDSH) (Vker * PHIDKER)
7: PHInc = PHIN (Vsh * PHINSH) (Vker * PHINKER)
8: PHIe = (PHInc + PHIdc) / 2
A more complete description of the porosity method and the conversion of TOC weight fraction to
kerogen volume fracture are given in the Gas Shale Chapter.
This step requires careful calibration. For example, if Vker > PHIek, there is something seriously
wrong in the calculation of PHIek or TOC.
Methods that avoid the neutron log are also useful, including sonic-only, density-only, or sonic
density crossplot. Each method should be shale corrected and calibrated to core. Matrix and fluid
properties are needed for this, possibly on a zone by zone basis. Some samples are shown below.

Crossplots of sonic (left) and density (right) versus core porosity. Best fit lines give DTCmatrix =
182 with
DTCfluid = 500 usec/m and DENSmatrix = 2710 with DENSfluid = 1050 Kg/m3. The red line on the
density crossplot shows a relationship with DENSfluid = 400 Kg/m3. Such a relationship has
received some support in the industry but clearly does not fit the core data available on this
project.
The equations for solving the sonic and density models are as follows:
9: PHIdc = PHID (Vsh * PHIDSH) (Vker * PHIDKER)
10: PHIsc = PHIS (Vsh * PHISSH) (Vker * PHISKER)
11: PHIe = (PHInc + PHIdc) / 2
The matrix values that lead to PHID and PHIS may need some juggling to calibrate to core
porosity. Values in the quartz + heavy mineral range usually work. An example is shown later on
this page.

More sophisticated multi-mineral and statistical methods are definitely desirable, but these are not
always available quickly.
If these methods agree with each other, then the regression worked well. If they are in general
agreement with the density neutron crossplot, then it should be used because it has slightly
better compensation for mineral variations. However, if it is considerably higher than sonic and
density results (or core data), then abnormal neutron absorber minerals should be suspected and
the density neutron method should be discarded.
To reduce rough hole and sonic skips, taking an average of 3 or 4 methods may be used.
Nuclear magnetic resonance logs have become popular in tight gas, but they require special
attention. They generally show near zero effective porosity (BVI + BVM) but the NMR total porosity
(CBW + BVI + BVM) is close to the effective porosity from the methods discussed above. This
suggests that the NMR cannot tell the difference between clay bound water, capillary bound water,
or gas in these low porosities.

WATER SATURATION CALCULATIONS IN TIGHT GAS

There may be enough clay that the Archie model should not be be used. It costs nothing extra to
use a shale corrected saturation equation such as Simandoux or Dual Water model:
12: C = (1 - Vsh) * A * (RW@FT) / (PHIe ^ M)
13: D = C * Vsh / (2 * RSH)
14: E = C / RESD
15: Sw = ((D ^ 2 + E) ^ 0.5 - D) ^ (2 / N)
In many cases, the electrical properties must be varied from world average values to get Sw to
match lab data. Typically A = 1.0 with M = N = 1.5 to 1.8.
The result is very sensitive to clay volume (Vsh) and shale resistivity (RSH) in low porosity rocks.
Electrical properties variations between facies and with depth or diagenesis are not published.
This lab work is worth the effort, as considerable increases in gas in place are possible with small
reductions in M and N values.
Water recoveries are usually negligible and fairly fresh as the water is condensed from entrained
water vapour. The minimum water saturation on capillary pressure curves might be used to work
backwards to find an RW that will give a reasonable water saturation. Core analysis water
saturation, at least in more modern wells, seems to be a good guide and RW can be adjusted
accordingly.

PERMEABILITY CALCULATIONS IN TIGHT

GAS
Permeability may show a reasonable relationship to core
porosity. In the example at right, there is a strong
correlation. Many older core analyses do not record
permeability below 0.01 mD so are quite useless. Modern
tight rock methods can give permeability in nanoDarcies.
The equation of the line in this example is Perm = 10^(20.0 *
PHIe - 2.75). A few high perm data points are fractured
samples.

LITHOLOGY CALCULATIONS IN TIGHT GAS

How do we know which minerals to use in the petrophysical log analysis? Detailed sample
descriptions are a good start. Both X-Ray diffraction data and thin section point counts can be
used. Both methods are considered semi-quantitative and come from tiny samples compared to
the volume measured by logs. So we don't get too excited about obtaining a close numerical
match .
Standard 3-mineral models using PE, density, and neutron data are used with appropriate
parameters for the selected minerals, provided the neutron log is not shifted to the left due to iron
or other neutron absorbers. If this happens, we can calculate a matrix density from the sonic
density crossplot porosity and run a 2-mineral model:
22: DENSma = (DENS - PHIe * DENSfluid - (1 - Vsh) * DENSSH) / (1 - PHIe - Vsh).
If Vsh > 0.85, we set DENSma = DENS. If matrix density is too high compared to known lithology, it
means porosity is too high. Adding shale or eliminating bad data will reduce this problem - the
calculation is a good quality-control step.
Multi-mineral solvers can be used if spectral gamma ray data is available. In this case, shale
volume would be derived also. Elemental capture spectroscopy logs are also used. These solve
for the minerals and kerogen from the chemical element composition of the rock discovered by
the logging tool, but it may not do justice to the porosity, which should be checked by
conventional methods.
As in all things petrophysical, there is not much accuracy in the calculation of small volumes of
minerals or porosity.

PYRITE CORRECTIONS
Dispersed pyrite is described in most XRD reports on at least the Doig and Montney, but not in the
Cretaceous Deep Basin reservoirs. However, unlike the Bakken tight oil case, it seems to be
unconnected to the porosity and has no impact on the high resistivity values seen in these zones.
So far, no corrections have been needed in the tight case plays.

TIGHT GAS EXAMPLE

This example shows a tight gas sand in the Montney play that behaves like a normal sandstone as
far as log analysis is concerned. The porosity is halfway between the density and neutron
porosity curves. The gamma ray is quite high due to uranium, but the XRD bulk clay is low (0.00 to
0.10 fractional, 0 to 10% by weight). These values dont change much when converted to volume
fraction. Resistivity is reasonably high and RW is moderately low, so water saturation is low. Only
the raw log curves are shown here to illustrate the fact that visual analysis is quite straight
forward provided you get over the hang-up of the high gamma ray values.

Example showing raw logs for a typical Montney tight gas sand. Zone is clean and core porosity is
halfway between the density and neutron porosity. Zone is radioactive, quartz + dolomite.

This next example shows the effect of abnormal neutron absorbers on the porosity results, and
the use of sonic and density data to avoid giving too high a porosity. Some wells show larger
neutron offsets; some show no abnormal effects. Calibrating each curve to core and then taking
an average tends to remove variations in lithology that would otherwise distort the porosity
result.

This illustration of a portion of a lower Montney shows the use of multiple pay flags (porosity of
3% = red, 4% = green) beside GR track that emphasize the laminated nature of the porosity. The
"multi-porosity" track to the right of the resistive has (from left to right) PHIN_SS, PE, PHIxndc
(grey), PHIS (blue), Final Porosity (solid black), PHIDcustom (green), and PHID_SS.The final
porosity is a weighted average of the other curves, after shale corrections, because there appear
to be abnormal neutron absorbers that have shifted the neutron to the left, causing the density
neutron complex lithology model to read a bit too high. The matrix density track shows
reasonable values that agree with XRD and core grain densities in other wells. The porosity track
shows the final porosity (shaded red) with crossplot porosity just a little bit to the left.
Permeability is from regression of core data. Lithology on the far right is a 2-mineral model using
the matrix density derived from porosity and density data, using quartz+feldspar and
dolomite+heavy as two "generic" minerals. Grid lines are 1 meter spacing.

Copyright E. R. (Ross) Crain, P.Eng. email

Read the Fine Print