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Predicting the Porosity of Natural Fractures in Tight Reservoirs

  • Research Article - Earth Sciences
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Abstract

Predicting the fracture porosity of tight fracture reservoirs represents a difficult problem for log interpretation, although studying conventional log responses of tight fracture reservoirs provides helpful insights. Comparisons and analyses of the log response characteristics of the natural fracture zone of a tight reservoir are performed, and the results indicate that the acoustic (AC) and density (DEN) data are highly sensitive to fractures. First, the log response of the AC and DEN data are sensitive to tight fracture reservoirs, and differences in the AC and DEN log responses are obvious. Second, based on these differences, a model for calculating the fracture porosity is constructed, and an improved Willie difference method for the AC and DEN responses is proposed to calculate the fracture porosity. Finally, we apply the methodology to a case study of a tight reservoir in the Sichuan Basin, China, and then calculate the AC–DEN correlation coefficient and fracture porosity. The calculated fracture porosity is consistent with the fracture porosity from the full borehole micro-resistivity imaging results and core porosity. The results indicate that the method is applicable for predicting the porosity of fractures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geophysics and Information Technology, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, China

    Jingling Xu, Baoying Zhang & Lei Xu

  2. Key Laboratory of Geo-detection, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100083, China

    Jingling Xu, Baoying Zhang & Lei Xu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, China

    Jingling Xu, Baoying Zhang & Lei Xu

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  1. Jingling Xu
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  2. Baoying Zhang
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  3. Lei Xu
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Correspondence to Jingling Xu.

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Xu, J., Zhang, B. & Xu, L. Predicting the Porosity of Natural Fractures in Tight Reservoirs. Arab J Sci Eng 43, 311–319 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-017-2780-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-017-2780-z

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