A new method for NMR data inversion based on double-parameter regularization

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology plays a significant role in petroleum exploration. NMR data can be processed using inversion methods to reflect the relaxation information of all the components. We have developed a new double-parameter regularization (DPR) method for the inversion of NMR data, whose regularization terms consist of Tikhonov regularization and maximum entropy regularization. The objective function for the DPR method was solved using the Levenberg-Marquardt method, the proportional coefficient of the regularization parameter was obtained using an iteration procedure, and the optimum regularization parameter of the DPR method was selected using an S-curve. The relationship between the optimum regularization parameter and the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the data was evaluated. Moreover, we compared the results of the NMR inversion obtained from the norm smooth method, the maximum entropy method, and the DPR method for simulated data. We evaluated how the proportional coefficient of the regularization parameter affected the inverted [Formula: see text] distributions and processed field NMR log data for a tight sandstone reservoir using the DPR method. The results indicated that the optimum regularization parameter for the DPR method gradually decreases with increasing data S/N. The accuracy is higher for the DPR method than for the norm smooth method and the maximum entropy method under low-S/N conditions. It is of great importance to select the proportional coefficient for the DPR method. The inverted [Formula: see text] distributions are similar for the DPR method and the norm smooth method when the proportional coefficient is small, and this is similar for the DPR method and the maximum entropy method when the proportional coefficient is large.