Assessment of Depth of Mud-Filtrate Invasion and Water Saturation Using Formation-Tester Measurements: Application to Deeply Invaded Tight-Gas Sandstones

Formation pressure/fluid measurements are impacted by mud-filtrate invasion, which may require long fluid pumpout durations to acquire hydrocarbon samples with minimal mud-filtrate contamination. However, unlike other well-logging instruments, formation testers do not have a fixed depth of investigation that limits their ability to pump out mud filtrate until acquiring original formation fluids (i.e., sensing the uninvaded zone). We use an in-house petrophysical and fluid-flow simulator to perform numerical simulations of mud-filtrate invasion, well logs, and formation-tester measurements to estimate the radial distance of invasion and the corresponding radial profile of water saturation. Numerical simulations are initialized with the construction of a multilayer petrophysical model. Initial guesses of volumetric concentration of shale, porosity, water saturation, irreducible water saturation, and residual hydrocarbon saturation are obtained from conventional petrophysical interpretation. Fluid-flow-dependent petrophysical properties (permeability, capillary pressure, and relative permeability), mud properties, rock mineral composition, and in-situ fluid properties are obtained from laboratory measurements. The process of mud-filtrate invasion and the corresponding resistivity and nuclear logs are numerically simulated to iteratively match the available well logs and estimate layer-by-layer formation water saturation. Next, using our multiphase formation testing simulator, we numerically simulate actual fluid sampling operations performed with a dual-packer formation tester. Finally, we estimate irreducible water saturation by minimizing the difference between the hydrocarbon breakthrough time numerically simulated and measured with formation-tester measurements. The examined sandstone reservoir is characterized by low porosity (up to 0.14), low-to-medium permeability (up to 40 md), and high residual gas saturation (between 0.4 and 0.5). The deep mud-filtrate invasion resulted from extended overbalanced exposure to high-salinity water-based mud (17 days of invasion and 1,800 psi overbalance pressure) coupled with the low mud-filtrate storage capacity of tight sandstones. Therefore, the uninvaded formation is located far beyond the depth of investigation of resistivity tools, whereby deep-sensing resistivities are lower than those of uninvaded formation resistivity. Through the numerical simulation of mud-filtrate invasion, well logs, and formation-tester measurements, we estimated radial and vertical distributions of water saturation around the borehole. Likewise, we quantified the hydrocarbon breakthrough time, which matched field measurements of 6.5 hours. The estimated radius of invasion was approximately 2.5 m, while the difference between estimated water saturation in the uninvaded zone and water saturation estimated from the deep-sensing resistivity log was approximately 0.13, therefore improving the estimation of the original gas in place.