Evaluation of volcanic reservoir heterogeneity in eastern sag of Liaohe Basin based on electrical image logs

Abstract

The volcanic rocks of the Es3 (third member of the Shahejie) formation in the eastern sag of the Liaohe Basin are composed of basalt and trachyte, and the reservoir characteristics indicate complex reservoir space and strong heterogeneity. The latter is closely related to oil and gas reserves, and is important for evaluating reservoirs and predicting their oil and gas production. Electrical imaging data are obtained during such analysis and are subsequently transformed into a porosity map to obtain the porosity spectra and bin distribution. The results can then be used to qualitatively study the heterogeneity of the reservoir. In the present study, however, quantitative analysis is applied to evaluate the reservoir diversity of these volcanic rocks by calculating four heterogeneity parameters: the sorting index and the porosity variation coefficient, porosity ratio, and the heterogeneity coefficient. Combining the porosity spectra and porosity bin features enables the reservoir heterogeneity to be divided into three categories. The first is weak heterogeneity, which has both a sorting index and variation coefficient of <0.15, a porosity ratio of <2, and a porosity heterogeneity coefficient of <1.5. The second is moderate heterogeneity, with both a sorting index and porosity variation coefficient of 0.15–0.25, a porosity ratio of 2–4, and a porosity heterogeneity coefficient of 1.5–2.0. The third is strong heterogeneity, with both a sorting index and porosity variation coefficient of >0.25, a porosity ratio of >4, and a porosity heterogeneity coefficient of >2.0. In these three cases, the porosity spectra are dominated by unimodal distributions, bimodal distributions with tails, or multimodal distributions with tails, respectively. The heterogeneity of the volcanic reservoir was controlled by the lithology. The trachyte, from which most oil and gas is presently produced, is characterized mainly by weak heterogeneity, and the basalt is characterized mostly by moderate or strong heterogeneity. Thus, exploration conducted in the basalt layer should consider reservoirs with moderate heterogeneity and large pore sizes.