Real-Time Hydrocarbon Mapping by Time-Lapse Borehole Electric Tomography

Abstract

Real-time mapping reservoir fluids distribution during hydrocarbon production, or during injection operation, represents a crucial issue and a big challenge at the same time. In this article, we present a new approach based on single-well and cross-well electric measurements. We use electrodes permanently installed on the well casing and electrically insulated from it. We tested our approach through a two-steps workflow. In the first step, we performed forward and inverse modelling on realistic production scenarios. In the second step, we acquired, processed and inverted real data acquired in laboratory, where we tested small-scale scenarios of hydrocarbon production. We acquired and inverted DC (Direct Current) data. Our objective was to reconstruct the variations of the 3D distribution of electric resistivity during the various phases of oil production. The retrieved models reproduced properly the experimental movements of fluids observed in our lab measurements. Finally, modelling and inversion of both synthetic and real data confirm that cross-hole DC method allows mapping reservoir fluid variations even in case of predominant metallic components of the well completion.