Borehole Images: From Acquisition to Applications
Borehole imagers have been part of logging services since early 1990 and many images have been acquired since
then. With an increase in the data acquisition, an expansion in the applications of these data has followed.
Borehole Images are an extremely valuable data as they represent the closest comparison to an outcrop or core that
can be acquired in a borehole.
Interpretation workflows associated to these data, provide a high level and high resolution details which turns into an
increase predictability of subsurface models.
Borehole Images and Dipmeter data can be utilized for a detailed structural analysis of the borehole, they can
highlight the presence of fractures, they are used to analyze porosity partitioning in heterogeneous carbonate
formations, they help in determining in situ stress orientation with the identification of drilling induced fractures and
borehole breakouts and can be the main data in facies analysis and sand body orientation studies.
The beginning of the talk will focus on the different measurement available to acquire borehole images: especially a
clarification on electrical borehole images versus acoustic borehole images will be made. Then various borehole
images examples will be shown which highlight specific applications all very much in use nowadays in the Permian
basin: from the identification of different fractures to the determination of the insitu stress orientation, to the
orientation of sand bodies through the analysis of sedimentary features in the sands. Additionally some advanced
methodology will be shown, focused specifically on the carbonate porosity partitioning and characterization. At the
end some preliminary results on the Katz Strawn field facies analysis based on images will be shown at the end of
the talk.