SPE-99286-STU (Student 5)

Permeability Prediction Using Artificial Neural Network (ANN): A Case Study of

Uinta Basin
S. Singh, Maharashtra Inst. of Technology

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2005 SPE International Student Paper Contest
at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition being held in Dallas, Texas, 9-12
October 2005.
This paper was selected for presentation by merit of placement in a regional student paper
contest held in the program year preceding the International Student Paper Contest. Contents of
the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are
subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members.

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodolo
gy to predict the permeability for wells in the same field
using conventional logs (Gamma Ray, Neutron logs and
Density log). This methodology involves the application
of Error Back Propagation Neural Network. The
advantages of this learning algorithm is that, an error in
the final output gets back propagated and gradually
updates the weight and hence leads to the best network
structure.
Present study was made using published
literature on Uinta Basin, southwest Utah field (available
on Utah Geological Surveys (UGS) website). It has an
areal extent of 14900 km2. In this, study data from 13
wells was taken. Data from seven cored wells in the field
was used for training, and subsequently prediction and
verification was done on core permeability for remaining
six wells.
The result of this study shows that ANN
generated permeability is consistent with core analysis
result. This study was done using MATLAB 6.1s ANN
Toolbox.
Introduction [1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 13]
As reservoirs reach maturity, accuracy of the
petrophysical parameter becomes inevitable in the field
development and in designing of various enhanced oil
recovery techniques. Permeability is one of the important
petrophysical parameters of a reservoir rock and in reality
the success of any reservoir management program is
largely dependent on its accuracy.
Permeability determination is an active research
area in petroleum industry as there is no direct formula for
calculation of permeability from logs. Various correlations
developed on different basis were plugged with errors
arising from attempts to simplify the physical behavior of
the system [13].
This paper provides a case study of Uinta basin.
To determine permeability, previous studies were based

on linear regression analysis of log porosity and core

permeability in two different ways [6].
Though regression analysis is a popular
technique, it predicts mean values and thus overestimates lower values and underestimates higher
values. But an ANN approach does not force to predict
the values that lie near the mean values, hence
preserving the actual variability [10]. We have used the
multidimensionality of ANN at advantage as it uses indepth information by employing the input windows
encompassing multiple input sampling points like
Neutron porosity, Density log and GR log. Potential of
ANN as an ideal tool for modeling of nonlinear
phenomena can be evident from different studies [1, 4]
and this paper.
Theory of Artificial Neural Network [1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14]
ANN is defined as a computer model that attempts to
mimic simple biological learning process and simulate
the specific function of human nervous system. It is an
adaptive parallel information processing system, which
is able to develop association and transformation
between input and output data [1].
Steps performed in ANN analysis are:
1. Definition of problem: Identification of independent
variables (input) and dependent variables (output).
2. Data preprocessing: Transformation and scaling
(normalization) in the range of 0 to 1 of input and
output data.
3. Training of network: Preparation of datasets whose
input and output are known. The set is used for finding
a relation between input and output using appropriate
training rules.
4. Verification: Check network performance on an
unseen dataset with known output.
5. Prediction: Simulate the network for the datasets
whose outputs are not known.
This study uses Feed Forward Error Back
Propagation Neural Network (EBPNN) (Fig. 6). EBPNN
is a popular architecture for ANN because it is very
flexible and easy to implement and it has been proven
to be sufficient in a variety of applications [3, 9].
EBPNN are suitable for predicting problems
where input-output functions need to be learnt from
experience, thus they are model free estimators [9].
Structurally, feed-forward neural networks are
made up of one or more layers of either linear or
nonlinear processing elements. The term Feed

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Forward signifies that the information flow occurs only in

the forward direction. The unidirectional flow of the
information in feed forward networks is a consequence of
the output of processing unit from a given layer is fed only
to the unit in the next layer.
Multilayered Neural Networks are trained in a
supervised model, where a teacher in the form of target
output is present [5, 8, 12].
For the supervised training Error Back
Propagation (EBP) is a popular algorithm. This algorithm
is based on the nonlinear version of the Widrow-Hoff rule,
known as the Generalized Delta Rule (GDR). The steps
for performing the EBP are described in appendix.
A Multilayer perceptron network (MLP) is a
multilayer hierarchical structure, which have at least one
layer of processing unit between input and output layer.
The layer between input and output layer are termed
hidden since they do not interact with the out side world
directly. One can place several layers between the MLPs
input and output layers.
The output node may simply produce the net input
as their output. In other words, they process a linear
output function; however, the hidden layer must have
nonlinear processing elements [8, 12].
Case Study of Uinta Basin [1, 6]
Data Sources [6]
The Uinta Basin is a topographic and structural trough
encompassing an area of more than 9300 square mi
(14,900 km2) in northeast Utah (Fig.2). The basin is
sharply asymmetrical, with a two steep north flanks
bounded by the east-west-trending Uinta Mountains, and
a gently dipping south flank. More than 450 million barrels
of oil (63 MT) have been produced from the Green River
and Colton Formations in the Uinta Basin
The objectives of the earlier studies (UGS Trial-1,
-2) were to increase both primary and secondary
hydrocarbon recovery through improved characterization
and numerical simulation modeling of reservoir and to
encourage exploration and establishment of additional
water flood units throughout the southwest region of the
Uinta Basin, and other areas with production from fluvialdeltaic reservoirs. Two approaches were made to
determine the permeability but both were erroneous
because, both these methods were based on regression
analysis. In the present attempt an ANN approach was
taken.
UGS Trial-1
In order to carryout numerical simulation modeling
analysis accurate data of permeability is required. To
obtain this permeability value correlation between log
porosity and core permeability need to be done first.
Density and neutron log was carried out throughout the
field and it was observed that density of sandstone was
typically 2.66 g/cc, which are commonly used for density
logging in the area. On comparison of density log derived
porosity and density neutron average porosity to actual
core porosity, it was found that density log porosity has a
better correlation than density-neutron log average
porosity (Fig. 3,4). Thus density log porosity was used to

determine the correlation with core permeability. But

density log porosity had a wide variance, therefore
regression analysis gave wide margin of error, in the
permeability. As a result, permeability based on log
derived porosity / permeability relationships are
expected to be a source of error in the numerical
simulation modeling.
UGS Trial-2
Density-neutron log nearly always overestimated the
core-derived porosity. The density porosity more
closely matches the core-derived porosities, but the
range in values is large and can be a source of error in
determining permeability values for numerical
simulation modeling in the first approach.
Porosity determined from density well logs is a
function of the grain density of the rock. Porosities in
the study area were calculated from the density log
data assuming a grain density of 2.68 g/cc. The grain
density values from the entire core data show that
majority of the samples have a grain density of 2.66
g/cc except for the carbonate beds, where most
samples have a grain density of 2.75 to 2.76 g/cc. The
higher grain density (2.68 versus 2.66 g/cc) results in
an overestimate of the porosity by about 1%. This error
can be easily corrected and is small compared to the
potential error caused by the large range in values
between core derived porosity and log derived porosity.
This new corrected porosity is used to determine
permeability in regression analysis (Fig. 5), which
again leads to introduction of error into the simulation
model. In view of the above limitations, we decided to
take up ANN approach.
Current Approach [1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 14]
To reduce the above mentioned error, ANN approach
is applied. The steps followed in this work are
explained below:
Data Preprocessing:
1. Identification of independent and dependent
variable:
This is decided on the basis of theoretical background
and availability of logs in field and later on the basis of
network performance. In the present work are Gamma
ray logs, Neutron log, and Density log are the
independent variables and core permeability is the
dependent variable.
2. Input Transformation:
Experience in this study shows that the network
performs better when there is additional transformed
input data. This enhances the performance of network
because this is additional information about the nature
of physical phenomenon. This process makes
interpretation of input data easier and enhances the
training process. This study uses five transformed input
data namely GR Slope, GR Base Line, Flow Unit,
Density Slope, and Density Base Line. The commonly
used transformation forms are first derivative, relative
variable difference, and trigonometric functions.
3. Scaling:

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This is the process of standardizing the input data in the

finite range of 0.05 to 0.95. It enhances the fairness of
training by preventing an input with large value from
swamping out another that is equally important but has a
smaller value.[10] Scaling is also recommended because
the network training parameter can be tuned for a given
range of input data; thus, the training process can be
carried over to similar task.
In this study, formula for scaling is
(X i -X Min )
0 .9
X i' = 0 .05 +
(X Max -X Min )
After training, we have to simulate network for getting
output. In this study Sigmoid transfer function [8] is used,
thereby output will be in the range of 0.05-0.95. Hence the
output has to be rescaled and the formula for rescaling is,

-X
)
'
(X
X i = (X i' - 0 .05 ) Max Min + X Min X i =scaled
0 .9

X i =original input/output vector, i

=number of input and output vector, X Max = maximum
value of input/output, X Min = minimum value of
input/output vector,

input/output.
4. Training of network:
Training is done with the seven well dataset by the use of
neural network software. The strategy for training is EBP.
The configuration of network used in this study has three
hidden layers, and activation functions at all nodes are
logsigmoid. Iteration is kept up to 80,000 (Fig. 7) and the
correlation coefficient for training set was found to be
0.977 (Fig. 7).
5. Verification:
Verification is done for six wells and correlation coefficient
with actual core permeability is to maximum of 0.951 (Fig.
8, 9).
Results
The verification results of six wells are shown (in figures
10, 11, 12) and the performance of ANN predicted
permeability is shown with the actual core permeability.
The correlation coefficient is 0.443 to 0.951. The results
show that ANN predicted permeability is consistent with
actual core permeability.
Conclusions
This paper demonstrates a methodology using ANN to
predict the permeability where core permeability is not
available. A reasonably good match is observed between
ANN predicted permeability and core permeability.
As ANN is a multiple nonlinear regression method,
and has a great ability to handle highly nonlinear or illdefined system, this methodology is preferable to
regression analysis.
1. This study shows that it can handle small scale
heterogeneities as well as large scale
heterogeneities.
2. One can use these results in a reservoir
simulation model to reduce the error in

measurement of permeability and get better

characterization of reservoir. This enhanced
accuracy will help in decision making for better
reservoir development program.
3. Additional work to check whether the
transformed data of three basic inputs would
increase the accuracy needs to be verified.
4. Good quality of the log data and core
permeability is necessary for accurate ANN
prediction.
Limitations
This network is trained in the ranges of GR- 0 to 30
Units, Neutron 10 to 18 Units, Density Log 2.3 to 2.87
Units, Permeability - 0.001 to 110 Units, beyond these
ranges ANN performance may be inferior.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge and thank for financial
support from Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Dr.
Suresh N. Karkhanis, and Mr. Arunabh Parasher. I
would also like to extend my sincere gratitude and
indebtness to Dr. L. K. Kshirsagar, Dr. P. B. Jadhav,
Mr. S. Nandi, and Mr. Michael DSouza for guidance
and Prof. V. D. Karad, Director, for encouragement.
References
1. Ademola Akinwumi Onerous,: A New
Approach for Training and Testing Artificial
Neural Network for Permeability Prediction,
M.S. Dissertation, College of Engineering and
Mineral Resources at West Virginia University,
2002
2. Badarinadh V., Suryanarayana K., Fahd Zaki
Youssef, Khalid Sahouh, and Antonio Valle:
Log-Derived Permeability in a Heterogeneous
Carbonate Reservoir of Middle East, Abu
Dhabi, Using Artificial Neural Network, paper
SPE 74345 presented at the SPE International
Petroleum Conference and Exhibition in
Mexico held in Villahermosa, Mexico, 10-12
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15-17 March 1994
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Sepehrnoori,:
Modeling
Nonlinear
Phenomena, paper SPE 39805 presented at
the 1998 SPE Permian Basin Oil and Gas
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25-27 March 1998
5. MATLAB 6.1 ANN Toolbox Users Guide
6. Reservoir Characterization of the Lower
Green River Formation, Southwest Uinta
Basin, Utah. Biannual Technical Progress
Report,
Utah
Geological
Survey,
www.ugs.state.ut.us/greenriv.htm

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SPE Student Paper

7. S. Kerchner, B. Kaiser, M. Donovan, and R.

Villarreal,: Development of a Continuous
Permeability Measurement Using Wireline
Logging Methods and the Resulting Impact on
Completion
Design
and
Post-Completion
Analysis, paper SPE 63259 presented at the
2000 SPE Annul Technical Conference and
Exhibition held in Dallas, Taxas, 1-4 October 2000
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Despande,: Element of Artificial Neural Network
with Selected Application in Chemical and
Chemical & Biological science, Building Blocks of
feed Forward Neural Network, Simulation &
Advance Controls, Inc., Louisville (1996), Chap. 2,
39-56
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and J. H. Fang,: Predicting Permeability from
Porosity Using Artificial Neural Networks, AAPG
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paper SPE 82411 revised for publication from
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11.

12.

13.

14.

Production and observation Symposium,

Oklahoma City, 25-28 March 2002
Shahab
Mohaghegh,:
Virtual-Intelligence
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Shekhar Pandharipande,: Artificial Neural
Network (FFEBPN), Artificial Neural Network,
Techno Publication, Nagpur 2004, Chap. 2, 1023.
T. Babadagli, and S. Al-Salmi A Review of
Permeability-Prediction Methods for Carbonet
Reservoirs Using Well-Log Data, paper SPE
87824 revised for publication from paper SPE
77889, first presented at the Asian Pasific Oil
and
Gas
Conference
and
Exhibition,
Melbourne, Australia, 8-10 October 2003
Terrilyn M. Olson,: Porosity and Permeability
Prediction in Low-Permeability Gas Reservoirs
form Well Logs Using Neural Networks, paper
SPE 39964 presented at the 1998 SPE Rocky
Mountain Regional/Low-Permeability Reservoir
Symposium and Exhibition held in Denver,
Colorado, 5-8 April 1998

Appendix [8] - The steps for performing the EBP

Fig.1: A single hidden layer network, with a bias node in its input and hidden layer is shown; the network
possesses n input units, m hidden units, and s output unit

x k 0 x k 1 . x kn

= kth input

WljO = Weight between j to l at output

W jih = Weight between i to j at hidden

E =

K =1

Ek

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SPE Student Paper

= momentum parameter (0<=<=1)

=learning rate (0<=<=1)
^ o

^ h

y kj , y kl = hidden and output layer output respectively

netkjh =weighted sum j to kth node at hidden layer

netklo = weighted sum l to kth node at output layer

y

kl

=Target at output node

kjh = Scaled error at hidden layer

klo = Scaled error at output layer

Wljo ( t +1) =weight between j to l node at t+1th iteration (output layer)
Wljo ( t 1) = weight between j to l node at t-1th iteration (output layer)
W jih ( t +1) = weight between i to j node at t+1th iteration (output layer)

W jih ( t 1) = weight between i to j node at t-1th iteration (output layer)

1. Initialize the hidden and output layer connection weights to small random values (-1 to +1)
2. Apply the Kth input pattern Xk= (Xk0, Xk2, , .Xkn) for the training set containing P pattern to input layer.
3. Compute the weight sum using sigmoid function to get output of hidden layer.

net

h
kj

h
ji

i=0

x ki ; j = 1, m

4. Transform the weighted sum using sigmoid function to get output of hidden layer.
^ h

y kj =

net kjh

1+ e

; j=1,

5. Compute the weighted sum for each node in output layer.

o
kl

net

^ h

w ljo

kj

; l = 1, s

6. Transform the weighted sum using sigmoid function to get output of output layer.
^ o

y kl =

1 + e ( net kl )

i = 1, s

7. Compute the scaled error for output layer.

^ o

^ o

^ o

klo = y kl y kl 1 y kl y kl

l = 1, s

8. Compute scaled error for neuron in hidden layer

h
kj

^ h

= y kj 1 y kjh
l =1

o
o
kl W lj

j = 0, m

9. Update the weight in between output and hidden layer.

o
lj ( t +1)

=W

o
lj ( t )

^h

+ y kj + [Wljo ( t ) Wljo ( t 1) ]
o
kl

j = 0, m
i = 1, s
10. Update the weight in between input and hidden layer.

W jih ( t +1) = W jih ( t ) + kjh x ki + [W jih ( t ) W jih ( t 1) ]

i = 0, 1, n

j = 1, m

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D e n s it y lo g p o r o s it y ( % )

30

R2 = 0.2608

20

10

0
0

Fig.2: Index map of Uinta basin, showing

study area[6]

10
15
Core Porosity (%)

20

25

Fig.3: Comparison between Density Log

Porosity versus Core Porosity

30

R2 = 0.1783

1000
C o r e P e r m e a b ilit y ( m d )

R2 = 0.1947
De n s ity-Ne u tr o n avg . Po r o s ity (%)

100

20

10

10
1
0.1

10

15

20

0.01

0
0

10

0.001

20

Core Porosity (%)

Fig.4: Comparison between density- Neutron

avg. log porosity versus core porosity

Density Porosity (%)

Fig.5: Regression analysis of density porosity

and core permeability

Neutron Porosity

Gamma ray

Gamma ray base line

Gamma ray slope

Core permeability
Density log

Density log base line

Flow unit

Density log slope

Input Layer

Hidden Layer

Output Layer

Fig.6: Schematic Diagram of ANN used in this study

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SPE Student Paper

Fig.7: Training window of software and prediction for training set

Fig.8: Correlation between Core Permeability and ANN Predicted Permeability of wells 12-35, 1-26

Fig.9: Correlation between Core Permeability and ANN Predicted Permeability of wells 16, 10-34

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SPE Student Paper

200

140

ANN Prediction

12-35

1-26

ANN Prediction

180

Core permeability

120

Core Permeability

100

140
P e r m e a b ility (m d )

P e r m e a b ility (m d )

160

80
60
40

120
100
80
60
40

20

20

0
1

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

11 13 15 17 19 21 23

25 27 29 31 33

No. of Data

No. of Data

Fig.10: Core Permeability versus ANN Predicted Permeability of verification wells 12-35, 1-26

10

60

ANN Prediction

34-5

Core Permeability

8
P e r m e a b ilit y (m d )

P e r m e a b ility ( m d )

50

ANN Prediction

12-4

Core Permeability

40
30
20

7
6
5
4
3
2

10

1 2 3 4 5 6

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
No. of Data

No. of Data

Fig.11: Core Permeability versus ANN Predicted Permeability of verification wells 12-4, 34-5

16

300
16

Coar Permeability

ANN Prediction

14

Core Permeability

12

C o r e P e r m e a b ility (m d )

C o r e P e r m e a b ility (m d )

250

10-34

ANN Prediction

200

10

150
100
50

8
6
4
2
0

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
No. of Data

6
7
No. of Data

10

11

12

Fig.12: Core Permeability versus ANN Predicted Permeability of verification wells 16, 10-34

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