Method for performing a morphological survey of geological...

Image analysis – Applications – Seismic or geological sample measuring

Reexamination Certificate

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C324S338000, C367S025000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06272232

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to surveying the geological formations through which a borehole passes, and more particularly to a method for characterizing their morphology relative to depth down the borehole.
If a physical characteristic such as resistivity is used for evaluating the formations traversed by a borehole, formations can be classified as a function of the following criteria: 1) a formation may be solid, i.e. it has resistivity values that are uniform, either resistive or conductive; 2) it may be non-solid, in which case it may be bedded if it has relatively rapid changes between resistive zones and conductive zones; 3) it may be heterogeneous, in which case it may be of the interwoven type comprising both resistive elements and conductive elements; 4) it may be of the type including resistive inclusions within a conductive background or; 5) it may be of the type having conductive inclusions within a resistive background.
Clearly, the morphological types of underground formations are related to their porosity and to their permeability. In hydrocarbon reservoirs, these parameters are determined to evaluate production potential. It is therefore advantageous to be able to characterize the morphology of formations in accordance with such a classification as specified above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method enabling geological formations to be characterized with respect to their morphology.
The method of the invention relies on automatically processing an image of the wall of a borehole. Such an image has been available at a resolution of less than 1 cm ever since the introduction of Schlumberger's FMS device (Formation MicroScanner). That device provides an electrical image of the wall of a borehole, i.e. an image in which the intensity of a pixel is a function of the resistivity of the formation.
According to the invention, starting from an initial image of the wall of the borehole representative of variations in a physical parameter of the formation in the longitudinal direction of the borehole (“depth”) and in the peripheral direction of the borehole wall (“laterally”), a crossing-component image is constructed which includes only those components of the parameter that extend all the way across the image from one side of the image to the other. Variations in one or more attributes relating to the parameter in the crossing-component image are determined as a function of depth. These variations provide information relating to morphology.
Preferably, the attribute(s) are also determined for the initial image, and the values obtained for the initial image and for the crossing-component image are compared, thereby providing additional information relating to morphology.
In an advantageous implementation, the initial image is made binary to form a two-phase image in which one of the phases (the “white phase”) corresponds to relatively high values of the parameter while the other phase (the “black phase”) corresponds to relatively low values thereof. The binary image serves as the initial image for constructing the crossing-component image.
Appropriately, the crossing-component image is obtained by eliminating noncrossing components of the white image and non-crossing components of the black image from the binary image of the components.
Appropriately, one of the attributes is determined as a function of the area of the image that is occupied by one of the phases. Another attribute envisaged by the invention is an indicator of the value of the parameter in each of the phases of the binary image.


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J.F. Rivest et al., “Marker-controlled segmentation: an application to electrical borehole imaging,”Journal of Electronic Imaging, Apr. 1992, vol. 1 (2), pp. 136-142.
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