52 SUBSURFACE DATA INTEGRATION

Logging history
rich with innovation
From bathtub experiments to modern nuclear physics, formation
logging has been the backbone of oil and gas development,
letting geologists, geophysicists and engineers see more and
more of the subsurface.

By Editor in Chief BILL PIKE and

Exploration Technology Editor RHONDA DUEY

In 1929 logging
operations in the
Pechelbronn field
involved a specialty
fabricated cable, but
the winch was still
hand-driven. Images
courtesy of
Schlumberger.

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 SUBSURFACE DATA INTEGRATION 53

T
he advent of well logging in the 1920s and began to develop rapidly. In 1931, the accidental mud (OBM) in the Rangely, Colo., oil fields in
its subsequent development into a discovery of spontaneous potential (SP), 1948. OBMs are nonconductive. Normally
sophisticated technology revolutionized produced naturally by the borehole mud at the configured electrical surveys require a
the oil and gas exploration and production boundaries of the permeable beds, led to an conductive mud (water-based) system.1 The
industry. The ability to look and measure such innovative new logging technique solution to logging in OBMs was the induction
things as formation type, formation dip, simultaneously recording SP and resistivity log, developed in the late 1940s. In induction
porosity, fluid type and other important factors curves. This technique enabled producers to logging, high-frequency AC of constant
transformed the drilling and completion of oil differentiate permeable oil-bearing beds from intensity is sent through a transmitter coil. The
and gas wells from an ill-defined art into a impermeable, nonproducing ones. alternating magnetic field thus created induces
refined science. Logging development By 1936, the industry could augment secondary currents in the formation (that) flow
encompasses three major areas: electric resistivity logs with formation sample takers, in circular ground-loop paths coaxial with the
logging, sonic or acoustic logging, and nuclear automatic film recorders and multispacing transmitter coil. These ground-loop currents, in
logging. An understanding of their development resistivity curves for deep wells. turn, create magnetic fields that induce signals
is an understanding of the industrys technical The 1940s were a period of rapid in the receiver coil. The induced receiver
progress. development in logging technology despite the signals are essentially proportional to the
intervention of World War II. In 1941, logging conductivity of the formation. 2
Electric logging took another major step forward with the Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, electric
The genesis of electric well logging resides with introduction of the spontaneous-potential logging continued to develop, but it was the
Conrad Schlumberger, who while a physics dipmeter, which greatly improved the vertical computerized processing of logs that
professor at the Ecole de Mines de Paris, resolution of openhole logs. The tool allowed catapulted the sector ahead in 1962.
France, conceived the idea of prospecting for the calculation of a layers dip the deviation of Computerization allowed much faster log
metal ore deposits by using their electrical that layer from true horizontal and the processing, thereby allowing the dramatic
conductivity to distinguish them from their less direction of the dip. This measurement was expansion of log data-gathering capability.
conductive surroundings. One of the first tests, improved further with the resistivity dipmeter By 1970, the sector was poised on the brink
according to Schlumberger historians, was in 1947 and the continuous resistivity dipmeter of significant advances in logging technology,
performed in his bathtub, which was filled with in 1952. particularly in the field of nuclear logging. But
various rocks for the experiment. Working with During the 1940s, development in other areas advances still were being made in electric
his brother Marcel Schlumberger, Conrad forced innovations in logging. One of the most logging, especially in the area of mass and
began a series of test surface surveys in Europe, important was the introduction of oil-based speed of data collection. The year 1971 saw the
Africa and North America over a 3-year period.
Their discoveries included an oil-productive
salt dome in Romania, a precursor of things to
come.
In 1926, the brothers formed Societe de Conrad Schlumberger prospects
Prospection Electrique and began to develop for metal ore deposits in
the theory that adding resistivity information Normandy, France, in the early
from deeper formations would increase the 1920s using technology later
effectiveness of their surface prospecting. By employed in well logging.
lowering an electric sonde down a 1,600-ft (488-
m) well in Frances Pechelbronn field Sept. 5,
1927, the brothers created the first well log. This
log was painstakingly recorded point by point,
meter by meter, using makeshift equipment and
then plotted by stitching together the
successive readings (Figure 1).
The technology worked simply. Three
electrodes A, M and N are lowered to the
bottom of the wellbore on three insulated
wires. Current from electrode A passes through
the drilling mud and spreads out into the
formation. The potentials measured at M and N
are transmitted to the surface where they are
measured. By measuring the potential
difference between M and N, and the strength
of current from A, the apparent formation
resistivity is calculated (Figure 2).
Following the initial success with the first
electric resistivity logs, logging technology

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54 SUBSURFACE DATA INTEGRATION

introduction of combination logging systems. Sonic logging introduced in 1962, the borehole wall is
Combos allowed loggers to acquire different In 1946, working in large part off technology irradiated with a gamma ray source. A gamma
sets of data simultaneously rather than in developed during World War II, the logging ray counter then records the reflected rays. The
sequential runs. Thus were born tools that sector produced the first sonic log, the casing number of gamma rays returned vs. those
provided gamma ray, SP, resistivity, sonic and collar locator. This technology allowed more diffused relates to the density of the formation.
caliper measurements in a single run. accurate depth measurement inside casing and The industry took nuclear logging one step
more exact placement of perforations and further with the introduction of neutron logs in
completion equipment. Sonic logs generally the late 1960s. Neutron logs also measure
work by generating signals in the 20-kHz to returned gamma rays, but in this instance,
30-kHz range, although some tools operate at those generated by fast- or slow-moving
higher ranges. Most acoustic logging tools have neutrons. Neutrons are emitted by mixed
centralizers at one end and three caliper arms radioactive sources. Most of the (neutrons)
at the other end to keep the tools centered in energy lost is done so during collisions with
the hole. An acoustic wave transducer atop the hydrogen nuclei After having traveled a
tool generates the acoustic signal. Two certain distance, a neutron becomes thermal
receivers at the lower end of the tool receive or slow and is captured by an atom, which
the signal. After a signal from a transducer emits a capture gamma ray.6 Since the distance
travels through the fluid and strikes the a neutron can travel without hitting a hydrogen
borehole wall at the critical angle, a nuclei varies with the amount of hydrogen
compressional wave is transmitted down the present, both porosity and formation contents
borewall in the direction of the receivers. As it can be determined. The original neutron logs
propagates along the borewall toward the were augmented later by pulsed neutron logs
receivers, fluid waves are continually refracted and neutron spectroscopy logs.
back into the fluid. However, only two refracted One of the biggest breakthroughs in recent
ray paths are of interest: the ray paths taken logging history has been the advent of nuclear
back toward the two receiving transducers ... If magnetic resonance (NMR) logging. The
we measure the difference in time of arrival of technology has proven more potentially
the compressional wave at the two receivers, beneficial and more confounding than its early
we can determine the compressional wave developers could have imagined.
travel time through the rock formation opposite NMR tools function by creating a magnetic
the two receivers.3 field in the borehole and then sending out
During the next three decades, sonic logging pulses that polarize the hydrogen in water, oil
moved into several measurement fields, and gas in the formation. As these hydrogen
including: nuclei realign themselves to the original
porosity measurement; magnetic field, they induce signals in the tools
cement bond evaluation; receiver, which are recorded by electronics.
fracture detection; Recording
equipment
lithology determination; Pulley
mechanical rock properties measurement;
borewall and casing inspection;
seismic calibration;
abnormal formation pressure detection;
and
gas-bearing formations identification.4
Although nuclear logging has supplanted
some of its functions, acoustic logging remains
a vital part of the logging suite and regularly is
run in some form in combination logging tools.

Nuclear logging
Logging using radiation of nuclear origin got its
start in 1940. The initial nuclear logging tools
recorded the natural gamma radiation emitted
by the formations crossed through by
boreholes. Of the three identified nuclear
radiations alpha, beta and gamma only N M
gamma radiation, which is of the
electromechanical type, can be used in well
logging because it alone has sufficient A

penetrating power to go through the formation

and the steel casing.5 Figure 2. Resistivity logging employs an electrode
Figure 1.The first electric log was obtained Sept. From passive radioactive monitoring in the (A) to generate currents M and N. From
27, 1927, on the Diefenbach 2905 well, Rig. No. 7, gamma ray tool, the logging industry moved measurements of the potential difference between
at Pechelbronn,Alsace, France.The resistivity curve rapidly to active nuclear bombardment and M and N, and the strength of current A, the
was created by plotting successive readings. measurement. In a formation density log, first apparent formation resistivity is calculated.

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 SUBSURFACE DATA INTEGRATION 55

The amplitude of the signal relates directly to goal. That goal was within range of the
porosity, and the signal relaxation time relates sophisticated logging tools by the advent of the
to the size of the pore spaces containing fluids, combination tools in the early 1960s.
providing an indication of permeability. NMR The barrier to earlier implementation of
is a fluids-only measurement; however, due to MWD and LWD was not the logging tools but
the interactions of the pore fluids with rock the method by which to send the information
surfaces, the rock matrix can significantly to the surface while drilling with jointed pipe.
influence the fluid response. As it turns out, a key advance in logging tools
The technology has existed since the early was not another logging technology but rather
1960s, but it has taken several decades to mud-pulse technology, which allows near-
refine the process, with Numar now a continual transmittal of logging information
Halliburton subsidiary the first to bring a from tools on the bottom of the drillstring to
continuous NMR logging tool to the market. processors at the surface through
The result has been an offering of tools and measurement of short, varying variances in
associated products that provide better depth mud pressure created by a component of the
of investigation and more information than logging suite downhole. It is possible to
ever before while traveling at the same pace as employ almost any logging suite combination
a traditional triple combo. on the bottom of drillpipe and log the hole as it
is drilled. While some operators remain
Pipe-conveyed logging reluctant to allow decisions on a well to be
For at least two decades, highly deviated holes made solely on MWD/LWD logs, reliability and This formation density tool was a major innovation in
have required loggers to run their suites of correlation have improved dramatically . early nuclear logging technology.
tools on pipe. Initially those efforts took the
form of traditional logging tools run on coiled References 49-14, 49-15, 1992.
tubing with electric line run inside the tubing. 1. Etnyre, Lee M., Finding Oil and Gas from 3. Etnyre, pp. 94-95.
Almost instantaneous information received Well Logs, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 4. Ibid.
continually at the surface now known as p. 161, 1989. 5. Debrandes, Robert, Encyclopedia of Well
logging-while-drilling (LWD) and 2. Bradley, Howard B., Petroleum Logging, Editions Technip, Paris, France, pp.
measurement-while-drilling (MWD) while Engineering Handbook, Society of Petroleum 150-151, 1985.
the well was being drilled had always been a Engineers, Richardson, Texas, 3rd edition, pp. 6. Debrandes, p. 9

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