A Review of Permeability-Prediction
Methods for Carbonate Reservoirs Using
Well-Log Data
T. Babadagli, SPE, U. of Alberta, and S. Al-Salmi, SPE, Halliburton Worldwide
Summary
The prediction of permeability in heterogeneous carbonates from
well-log data represents a difficult and complex problem. Gener-
ally, a simple correlation between permeability and porosity can-
not be developed, and other well-log parameters need to be em-
bedded into the correlation. The first part of this paper covers an
extensive review of the existing correlations in the literature. The
use of porosity and other petrophysical properties of rock in per-
meability prediction is discussed for carbonaceous rocks. This dis-
cussion also covers the usefulness of a wide variety of correlations
developed using pore-scale (Kozeny-Carman, percolation, and
fractal models) to field-scale models (well logs).
In the second part of the paper, a case study is presented. The
data are obtained from a complex carbonate field in Oman. Con-
ventional and nonconventional (mainly nuclear magnetic reso-
nance, or NMR) well-log data are evaluated to seek the parameters
reflecting a good correlation with permeability. After testing each
independent variable against core permeability, the variables yield-
ing the highest correlation coefficient (CC) are included in mul-
tiple regression analysis. Data collected from seven wells are used
to obtain the permeability correlations for the whole field and for
four geological units separately. The test of the correlations is
achieved through the comparison of the estimated permeability
values to core permeability. Finally, the correlations are compared
with the core permeability of the eighth well (data from this well
are not included in the development of the correlation) for valida-
tion. The correlations are obtained for the four geological units.
Two of these units responded well to conventional well-log data;
the other two units yielded reasonable correlations only with NMR
log data.
Introduction
Undoubtedly, mapping the permeability field of subsurface reser-
voirs is one of the most crucial parts of model preparation for
performance-estimation studies. Permeability can be obtained truly
in laboratory (core analysis) or in reservoir (formation testers and
pressure-transient analyses) settings. Pressure-transient analyses
provide a single value for the permeability but account for its
anisotropic nature. Core analysis and in-situ permeability measure-
ments using wellbore devices (formation testers) rely on the pres-
sure/rate relationship in the estimation of permeability. If these
measurements are not available, permeability is estimated indi-
rectly using rock properties acquired through well-log measure-
ment. Because of the abundance of reservoir data from well-log
measurements obtainable for every foot or so, correlating these
rock properties to permeability has received a great deal of attention.
The models used for the estimation of permeability from rock
properties can be categorized as (1) pore level and (2) core/field
level. Both techniques relate the permeability primarily to poros-
ity. Starting with the pioneering works by Kozeny1 (K) and Car-
man2 (C), many different correlations were proposed between po-
Copyright © 2004 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 87824) was revised for publication from paper SPE 77889, first presented
at the 2002 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia,
8–10 October. Original manuscript received for review 29 May 2003. Revised manuscript
received 1 December 2003. Paper peer approved 29 December 2003.
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
rosity and permeability. These equations were found to be suitably
applicable for synthetic porous media or unconsolidated sands.
Later, modified forms of the K-C equation were proposed for more
complex structures.3–5 Permeability also has been correlated to
grain and pore characteristics (mainly to the size)6–10 and irreduc-
ible water saturation.11,12 Nelson13 and Ahmed et al.14 provided a
critical review of these techniques. The NMR technology was used
for a better estimation of pore space characteristics to be used in
the permeability correlations.15,16
The main issue appears to be the generalization (or nonunique-
ness) of the equations proposed. An equation fitting well to the
core permeability of a reservoir rock may not be applicable to
another one even if it possesses geologically similar properties.
Therefore, more parameters are needed to obtain nonunique
correlations. These parameters are typically the electrical, radio-
active, and sonic properties of the rock obtained from well logs.
They were used in permeability correlations.17–21 In these at-
tempts, multivariable regression analysis (MRA) was applied
commonly.18–22 As an alternative to the MRA, artificial neural-
network technique was proposed and applied successfully.22–24
Relatively newer approaches based on the percolation,25–27
fractal,28–31 and multifractal32 theories were also proposed
and tested. Geuguen and Dienes33 provided an extensive re-
view of percolation and other statistical models used for perme-
ability determination.
The first part of this paper reviews these methods. Then, the
applicability of the methods to carbonates is discussed. In
the second part, a field case is taken, and the MRA is applied
to generate permeability correlations for the different units of
a reservoir.
Permeability Correlations
Since Kozeny’s pioneering work,1 a significant amount of studies
regarding the permeability estimation from available core/well
data has been reported. All these studies use static information
about rock properties, which are readily available in today’s tech-
nology, whereas permeability is a dynamic parameter that requires
an applied pressure throughout the system with respect to flowing
rate. The availability of dynamic information throughout the well
might be limited because of cost or time restrictions. These re-
strictions entail the use of easily available static reservoir infor-
mation to obtain a correlation for permeability. The main advan-
tage of this is the frequency and continuity of well-log data as
opposed to core data.
In this section, the techniques proposed so far in the literature
are categorized and evaluated. A critical review is performed in
terms of their applicability to heterogeneous and complex carbon-
ate systems, along with an exercise. Permeability prediction from
static data can be grouped under two categories: (1) pore- (micro)
scale data or properties, and (2) field- (core or macro) scale data
or properties.
Pore- (Micro-) Scale Models. Pore-scale models were inspired by
the K-C1,2 relationship, which was based on three terms: porosity,
specific surface area, and tortuosity. The technique was applicable
to unconsolidated and synthetic porous media, from which the
grain and pore properties could be characterized easily. After Ar-
chie34 proposed his well-known approach to quantifying the tor-
tuosity term, the Kozeny-Carman equation became more useful for
natural rock systems. Later, log-log and semilog relationships be-
75
tween porosity and permeability were reported for different reser-
voir types.35 These studies, along with the others that considered
the rock properties such as irreducible water saturation, shale con-
tent, grain size, and grain-size distribution, could be classified as
the pore-scale models. Statistical techniques, such as percolation
and fractal methods, deal also with pore-level properties. These
two techniques are reviewed next.
Pore Characteristics. The permeability correlations developed
with different pore and grain characteristics are summarized in
Table 1. Most of the correlations listed in Table 1 were derived for
76
sand packs, synthetic porous systems, or well-sorted clays.1,2,6–12
The NMR permeabilities15 and the modified forms of the K-C
equation3–5 were tested for carbonates as well.
Apparently, the permeability relationships are applicable to the
rock systems of which the grain and pore characteristics could be
quantifiable. Clastics and nonvuggy, well-sorted carbonate rocks
fall into that category.36 Otherwise, rock systems such as hetero-
geneous sandstones and carbonates entail the application of
other techniques such as MRA3–5,22 or artificial neural network
(ANN) analysis.23,24
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 Statistical (Percolation and Fractal) Techniques. The micro-
scopic properties of the rocks, such as specific surface area, throat
size, grain size, and tortuosity, are commonly used in relating
permeability to the fractal dimension of those proper-
ties.25,28,29,31,32,37,38 These studies used different types of sand-
stones28–31 or synthetic porous media27 to develop or verify the
fractal permeability correlations. Muller and McCauley29 tested
the fractality of a carbonate (chalk) sample.
Percolation models also were proposed in the literature.26,27
Likewise, these studies used sandstone26 or synthetically prepared
porous media26,27 for model development or verification. The frac-
tal and percolation models for permeability are listed in Table 2.
One of our objectives in this study was to test some of these
models for carbonates. For this purpose, we used core porosity/
core permeability (␾/k) data from a chalky carbonate reservoir.
The semilog relationship between ␾ and k is shown in Fig. 1.
Two different behaviors are observed with a cutoff porosity
value of 28%. This behavior is similar to that observed by Pape
et al.28 (Fig. 5 of Ref. 28) for clastic origin rocks. The percolation
Fig. 1—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for a chalky carbonate rock.
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
model developed by Mavko and Nur26 based on the K-C equation,
which gives a correlation between k and ␾ 3, was tested first for the
whole data set. In Fig. 2, a fitting curve of an equation for a
percolation threshold value of 0.0225 (crosses) is shown. This
threshold value is in agreement with Mavko and Nur’s observa-
tions for Fontainebleau sandstone (Fig. 2 of Ref. 26). They noted
that the reduction in the average grain size results in an increase in
the porosity threshold ␾c and the proportionality constant for syn-
thetic porous media made of well-sorted fuse glass beads
(␾c⳱0.035) and hot-pressed calcite (␾c⳱0.045). When the K-C
relationship with percolation was applied to two different parts of
the data set, as shown in Fig. 3, it was observed that the higher-
porosity section follows the k/␾3 relationship with a porosity
threshold (␾c) value of 0.095. For the higher-porosity values, we
observed an increase in the proportionality constant (from 165 to
450). The lower part of the data did not obey the cubic relation-
ship, and the best fit was obtained for ␾c⳱0.025 and the exponent
of 1.03. It is difficult to compare the observations with Ref. 28
because we have no information about the grain size of the chalky
77
Fig. 2—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for a chalky carbonate rock and the best-fitting percolation
model to the whole data set.
sample, as opposed to the cases given in Mavko and Nur, in which
the porous media were made of material with known grain sizes.
Note, however, that the percolation models of chalky carbonate
exhibit similarities with the synthetic porous systems.
Another attempt was made toward testing the fractality of the
␾/k relationship. The slopes of the log-log plots are given in
Fig. 1 for the whole data set (dashed line) and for two different
parts. The log-log plot of the whole data set yields a slope of
3.6422. When the exponent value [(4–D)/D], which is the slope of
the log-log plot proposed by Muller and McCauley,29 is applied
(see Table 2), the fractal dimension, D, is found to be 0.86. If the
data set is separated into two parts that have different trends, as
shown in Fig. 1, the fractal dimensions are obtained as 0.52 and
2.03 for higher-porosity (triangles in Fig. 1) and lower-porosity
sections (circles in Fig. 1), respectively. Having seen that all three
fractal-dimension values are not between 1 and 2, no fractal be-
havior can be pronounced. An alternative exponent was proposed
as (4–D)/(2–D) by Jacquin and Adler.39 If this is used, one can
obtain a fractal-dimension value of 1.242 for the whole data set
(dashed line) and 1.74 for the high-porosity part in Fig. 1 (tri-
angles) indicating the existence of fractal behavior. For the lower
part (lower porosity) of the data set, however, no fractal behavior
can be pronounced.
The relationship between the porosity and permeability of the
chalky sample exhibited a certain trend, which might obey a fractal
and percolation type behavior. This is mainly caused by the ho-
mogeneous structure of the chalk sample made of grains with
relatively uniform sizes. On the contrary, vuggy and more hetero-
geneous carbonates do not normally show such a trend. The case
Fig. 3—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for a chalky carbonate rock and the best-fitting percolation
model to two different parts of the data set.
78
taken in this study is a good example. The porosity/permeability
relationship for this case, which will be evaluated in this paper,
was plotted in Fig. 4. No trend fitting into any of the statistical
models mentioned previously was observed. A better way of
correlating the permeability to other petrophysical data will be
proposed in the next section as a case study for this type of car-
bonate system.
Field-Scale Models. Using readily available data from well-log
measurements, rather than the microscopic properties of the rocks,
has received a great deal of interest recently. The commonly ap-
plied techniques using well-log data are MRA and ANN. In these
analyses, a wide variety of well-log data, such as resistivity, sonic,
density, neutron, gamma ray, and NMR measurements, was tested
and used. Table 3 summarizes the correlations developed so far.
As seen, many different well-log measurements were tested.
Among these parameters, resistivity values for the invaded zones
and sonic travel time are expected to be related directly to the
permeability of the porous medium because they are also con-
trolled by the transmissivity of the medium. Some correlations
were developed using MRA as independent on any previous mod-
el(s)18–22 (see Table 3). Some of the correlations were based on the
previous models4 (see Table 1); a few of these models were de-
veloped for carbonates,4,20 and many more were developed for
sandstones.18,19,21 Furthermore, the NMR data were used in per-
meability estimations.5,15,40 The permeability estimation from
NMR data relies on the following relationship:
k = aT22␾ NMR
2
, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 Fig. 4—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for the whole field considered in the case study.
where T2 is the transverse relaxation time, and either the logarith-
mic or arithmetic mean of its distribution is used; a and ␾NMR
denote constant and NMR porosity, respectively. This permeabil-
ity-estimation technique was applied to heterogeneous carbonates,
and an improvement was obtained in permeability estimation.15 In
fact, relaxation time, T2, is related to permeability because it gives
a measure of the surface-to-volume ratio (S/V) of the pore system.
The S/V corresponds to the parameter Ag in the K-C equation (the
first equation in Table 1). Coates et al.41 proposed an improvement
by using FFI/BVI,2 which is essentially proportional to S/V. This
equation, known as the Coates bound-water permeability model
(also known as the Free Fluid model), is given in Table 1.
Practical Aspects of the Problem
and Carbonates
Almost all the studies at the pore level were performed for clastics,
of which the pore and grain properties could be characterized
quantitatively. Studies on nonvuggy carbonates and clays were
also reported. The pore characteristics of the clays are easier to
characterize quantitatively owing to uniform grain size and types
compared to those of the carbonates.
Because of their dependency on pore and grain properties, the
applicability of the models given in Table 1 has always been
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
questionable for carbonates. The same could be said for percola-
tion models to a certain extent. The fractal description could be
more helpful for heterogeneous carbonates. Both fractal and per-
colation models were observed applicable for a relatively “homo-
geneous” chalky carbonate reservoir (Figs. 1 through 3).
Heterogeneous carbonates, which in many circumstances can-
not be characterized by grain or pore characteristics, require ad-
vanced techniques and more data for accurate permeability esti-
mation from well-log information. Based on previous experience
with the heterogeneous carbonates, the involvement of more data
is inevitable to improve the correlation. For such systems, MRA
that uses readily available well-log data was proposed.4 NMR data
also were useful to improve the quality of permeability correla-
tions for heterogeneous carbonates.15 Another possible solution is
the ANN technique, which gives highly accurate estimation for
sandstones.19,23,24 The MRA, which provides a correlation and
thereby is more practical in preparing the data for simulation stud-
ies, can be an alternative to the ANN technique, though the ANN
might have a higher accuracy.19,23
Case Study: A Challenging Carbonate Reservoir
A heterogeneous carbonate field was considered as a case in
this study.
79
The Reservoir. The reservoir under study is a carbonate com-
posed mainly of four geologic units: thrombolite, breccia, mud-
stone, and grainstone. The operating company provided the data
for eight wells with 17 core intervals and well logs (NMR, sonic,
density, neutron, resistivity, gamma ray, and others). Core data
correlated to the well logs (mainly porosity logs) were used to
identify the intervals for four geologic units. The well-log data
from seven of the wells were used to develop permeability corre-
lations. The eighth well, selected arbitrarily, was designated for
testing and validation of the correlations. The log data comprise
NMR, sonic, density, neutron, resistivity, and gamma ray. The
description of the parameters used throughout the analysis is given
in Table 4. The semilog representation of the k/␾ plot for the
whole field is shown in Fig. 4. As seen, the data are highly scat-
Fig. 5—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for the breccia unit.
80
tered, and the correlation coefficient is very low. Therefore, k vs.
␾ for each unit was plotted individually in Figs. 5 through 8. In
these plots, the k/␾ data belong to only one unit collected from
seven wells. Each unit in the individual wells was also checked,
and a similar scattered behavior was observed. The correlation
coefficient was found to be relatively higher for breccia and grain-
stone (Fig. 6) units. These plots are good indicators of the hetero-
geneous structure. Some of the models given in Tables 1 and 3
were tested for the whole field. The CCs for these models are
shown in Table 5. The CCs are below the acceptable standards,
indicating that models do not fit into the data for this hetero-
geneous carbonate reservoir. Because of the lack of a certain
trend, unlike the previous example shown in Figs. 1 through 3,
it is quite impossible to fit fractal or percolation models to these
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 Fig. 6—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for the grainstone unit.
data as well. Hence, it was intended to apply an extended MRA for
this data set.
Multivariable Regression Analysis (MRA). The MRA tech-
nique has been suggested as a useful tool for correlating the per-
meability to rock properties if the number of variables is greater
than two.22 Mohaghegh et al.19 applied this technique to develop
a correlation between permeability and three independent param-
eters (see Table 3) for a heterogeneous sandstone formation. Saner
et al.20 applied a similar methodology for a carbonate reservoir.
Xue et al.21 used four variables in developing a permeability cor-
relation for a sandstone reservoir using the MRA technique. Al-
tunbay et al.4 used more than four variables to develop a correla-
tion between the constant FZI and log parameters (see Table 1).
These successful exercises proved the applicability of the MRA for
developing permeability correlations. Mohaghegh et al.19 provided
a critical review of this method. They applied four methods listed
in Table 1 (Timur, Tixier, Coates and Dumanoir, and Coates and
Denoo) to a heterogeneous sandstone reservoir and found that the
correlation developed with three independent variables given in
Table 3 yields a better CC. They also observed that the ANN
technique gave the highest CC.
In the present study, we applied the MRA technique using more
independent variables. The MRA could be an alternative method
for heterogeneous carbonates because many of the techniques did
not respond to such systems as discussed previously and in the
Fig. 7—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for the mudstone unit.
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
literature.4,19–22 Although the MRA is a fairly standard technique,
the relationships derived will be applicable to the particular reser-
voir. However, it is expected that the identification of the signifi-
cance of 22 different parameters (given in Table 4) in the perme-
ability relationship would be a useful exercise for further applications.
Similar to Mohaghegh et al.’s work,19 we selected seven wells
to develop the correlations and reserved the eighth well for testing
and validation. In the evaluation of the results, we used the CC as
well. This has been achieved with a software package (Statistical
Package for Social Science, SPSS*).
We begin by searching the correlations with the available in-
formation about the reservoir. The parameters used are listed in
Table 4. In addition to the conventional and unconventional well-
log data, there are some other parameters that could be related to
the permeability of the reservoir. For example, we included gas
indications (Gas-C1, Gas-C2, Gas-C3, and Gas-tot), which were
obtained during drilling as the amount of gas intrusion from
the formations.
Using SPSS, we correlated 22 parameters to core permeability
individually using the data from the whole field. Fig. 9 shows the
CCs between the parameter and core permeability for the linear
relationship. The CC ranges between 0.05 and 0.124. Some pa-
rameters, such as PE, HLLS, HLLD, SH, and Rho (defined in
* Trademark of SPSS Inc., Chicago.
81
 Fig. 8—Relationship between core permeability and core porosity for the thrombolite unit.
Table 4) yielded the highest CC. We also evaluated each geologi-
cal unit individually and computed CCs not only for the linear but
also for the exponential and logarithmic forms of the parameters to
seek a better correlation. The results are illustrated in Figs. 10
through 13 for four units. Significant improvement was obtained
when different correlation types were investigated and individual
units were considered rather than the whole field. The missing
points in some of the lines in the graphs are caused either by the
unavailability of the data or the nonexistent correlation.
Results. We selected the parameters showing the highest CCs in
Fig. 9 and applied MRA. The equation obtained for the whole field
is given here:
k = 136.5 + 0.3共PE兲 − 0.0072共HLLS兲 + 0.00018共HLLD兲
− 0.9共SH兲 − 16.3共Rho兲 − 16共Poro兲 − 267共Gas − C3兲
+ 2.2共Gas-tot兲 + 13.2共TNPhi兲 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
The CC for this equation was found to be 0.229. Having such
a low value of CC for the whole field, we decided to evaluate the
field for each geological unit. Such grouping of a reservoir based
on the hydraulic properties (hydraulic units) was suggested previ-
ously.3,5,42,43 In this study, we divided the reservoir into four main
geological units based on the lithology, assuming that each has
uniform hydraulic properties.
Unit 1: Thrombolite. For the thrombolite unit, 22 petrophysi-
cal properties were evaluated linearly, logarithmically, and expo-
nentially against permeability. The CCs are shown in Fig. 11. The
best CCs were obtained for the logarithmic form of the variables.
The parameters with high CCs are used in MRA as independent
variables. The following correlation with a CC of 0.802 was found
to be the optimum solution after the MRA exercise:
k = −6.5 + 5.4log共Gas-tot兲 + 0.98log共Gas − C2兲
+39log共Rho兲 + 5log共Gas − C3兲 − 0.012共HLLS兲
+0.0032共HLLD兲 + 1.1eSH − 0.4log共GR兲
−11.2log共Poro兲 +20共Nphi兲 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
82
We reduced the number of independent variables to observe
how this affects the CC of the permeability correlation. At each
step, we removed one parameter, starting with the variable having
the lowest CC. Having 10, 9, and 8 independent variables did not
affect the quality of the correlation, as seen in Table 6. When the
correlation was obtained with seven variables, the CC was found
to be 0.799, which is still in the acceptable range.
The validity of the correlation was tested on the eighth well, for
which the data are not included in the MRA exercise to obtain the
correlation. The result is shown in Fig. 14. The correlation in Eq.
3 captures the general trend. Note, however, that three extreme
values of permeability (between 15 and 20 md) do not show a good
match, which is most likely caused by the existing fracture or vugs
in the rock unit. As seen in Table 7, the thrombolite unit contains
a high percentage of vugs and fractures.
Unit 2: Breccia. A similar analysis was conducted for the
breccia unit. The highest CCs were obtained for the logarithmic
form of the variables, except for the resistivity and porosity, which
tended to correlate better in linear form (Fig. 10). The shale and
dolomite indicators yielded the highest CC in the exponential
form. The major contributors were used as independent variables;
after conducting the same analysis as that in Unit 1, the following
correlation with a CC of 0.816 was obtained for the breccia unit:
k = −510 − 1.5log共GR兲 + 0.3 log共PE兲 + 178 log共DTST兲
+0.2 log共Gas-tot兲 + 25 log共Rho兲 − 0.02共HLLS兲
+0.0026共HLLD兲 + 1.1eSH − 0.9eDolo + 4.8共TNPhi兲 . . . . (4)
The change in the CC caused by the reduction in the number of
independent variables is shown in Table 8. The CC went down to
0.759 from 0.816 when the number of variables was reduced from
10 to 3.
The correlation given in Eq. 4 was tested against the core
permeability from the eighth well (of which the data are not in-
cluded in the MRA exercise) to obtain the correlation. The result
is displayed in Fig. 15. The correlation captured the trend and even
the peak values of core permeability.
Unit 3: Mudstone. We tested many different combinations of
the variables with the highest CC in Fig. 12. The highest CC value
for the permeability correlation was obtained as 0.467.
Unit 4: Grainstone. Using the variables with the highest CC in
Fig. 13, many different combinations of the linear, exponential,
and logarithmic forms of the variables were tested. The highest CC
was obtained as 0.363.
The correlations for mudstone and grainstone were found to be
unsatisfactory. This could be attributed to the high degree of het-
erogeneity and poorly sorted grains. As seen in Table 7, the throm-
bolite and breccia units exhibit less heterogeneity compared to the
other two units. Even the fractures in the thrombolite and breccia
units are mostly sealed. Therefore, it was intended to change the
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 Fig. 9—CC between permeability and petrophysical parameters for the whole field.

Fig. 10—CC between permeability and petrophysical parameters for the breccia unit.

Fig. 11—CC between permeability and petrophysical parameters for the thrombolite unit.

Fig. 12—CC between permeability and petrophysical parameters for the mudstone unit.

April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 83

 Fig. 13—CC between permeability and petrophysical parameters for the grainstone unit.

method of analysis for mudstone and grainstone. The NMR log The exercise was continued by reducing the number of inde-
data are proposed as an alternative for these two geological units. pendent variables. We found that having only five independent
Improvements for Unit 3 and Unit 4 Using NMR Data by variables in Eq. 5 results in a correlation with a CC of 0.804. The
Modifying NMR (T2) Permeabilities. Eq. 1 has been proven to CCs for different numbers of variables are given in Table 10.
improve the quality of the permeability estimation and can be a For validation, one of the seven wells was used for the mud-
good alternative for heterogeneous carbonates.15 We tested this stone unit. The reason is that the eighth well, designated for this
equation for four units. The CCs obtained were 0.166, 0.061, and purpose, did not contain a thick and continuous mudstone unit. The
0.061 for breccia, grainstone, and mudstone, respectively. The validation of Eqs. 1 and 5 is shown in Fig. 16. Even though the
coefficient a, giving the highest CC value, for these units was general trend of matching is reasonably good by capturing very-
16×107, 9.6×107, and 7×106, respectively. For the thrombolite high-permeability streaks, several points did not show good agree-
unit, no correlation could be obtained. These values show that the ment. This is expectedly caused by vuggy and/or fractured parts.
use of NMR data in the form given in Eq. 1 is not enough to Grainstone Unit. A similar analysis was performed for the
develop a sound permeability correlation. Thus, we attempted to grainstone unit, and the following equation was proposed as a
improve this correlation by replacing the proportionality constant replacement for the constant a in Eq. 1. The CC was found to
of Eq. 1, a. The constant a in Eq. 1 depends on formation type; be 0.761.
therefore, it was correlated to the formation properties. We fol-
lowed a similar approach proposed by Altunbay et al.4 They re- a = −0.26 − 0.048共HLLS兲 − 0.0015共MSFL兲
placed the term FZI (defined in Table 1) in the permeability cor- −0.037共k − Stoneley兲 − 0.078共CMFF兲 + 0.077共T2LM兲
relation developed by Amaefule et al.3 using MRA. We simply did . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (6)
the same for the constant a in Eq. 1.
In addition to the well-log parameters from conventional well The exercise was continued by reducing the number of inde-
logs, we used parameters obtained from NMR, namely BFV, pendent variables. Note that k-Stoneley requires laboratory mea-
CMFF, T2LM, and TCMR. The descriptions of these abbrevia-
tions are given in Table 4. Singer et al.44 correlated some of these
parameters (i.e., BFV, CMFF) directly to the permeability as a
replacement of the T2 term in Eq. 1. We, however, used them as
the independent variables to define the constant a, considering the
fact that this coefficient is related to formation properties, as men-
tioned earlier. The CCs obtained for these variables against the
core permeability are given in Table 9. CMFF and TCMR gave
considerably higher CCs than other parameters.
Mudstone Unit. Based on the CC values given in Fig. 12 and
Table 9, the independent variables with the highest CCs were
selected for MRA. The following equation for the constant a in Eq.
1 was found to be the optimum solution with the highest CC
(0.856) for the mudstone unit:
a = −2,433 + 20共GR兲 − 291共SH兲 − 911共k − RTS兲
+ 33,451共BFV兲 + 37,617共CMFF兲 + 1.3共T2LM兲
+ 30,669共TCMR兲 + 710共GD兲 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (5)

Fig. 14—Validation of the permeability correlation (Eq. 3) for the

thrombolite unit using eighth-well data.

84 April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

surements and may not always be readily available. Therefore, the proposed with MRA. The qualities of the correlations were im-
correlation without this parameter was tested. As seen in Table 11, proved significantly.
a significant decrease in CC (0.250) was observed if four inde- 4. Further refinement of the geologic units (i.e., subhydraulic units
pendent variables were used, excluding k-Stoneley. Reducing the based on vuggy and fractured parts) improved the quality of the
variables to two did not cause any change in the CC (0.249). correlations. This was achieved by evaluating the reservoir for
For the same reason as that in the mudstone case, we were four different geologic units separately [i.e., breccia (fractured),
unable to use the eighth well for validation. One of the seven wells, thrombolite (fractured and vuggy), mudstone (fractured and
exhibiting a thick and continuous grainstone unit, was selected for vuggy), and grainstone (vuggy)], assuming that each geologic
this purpose. The result is shown in Fig. 17. The match is reason- unit possesses different hydraulic properties.
ably good for the combination of Eqs. 1 and 6.
As mentioned earlier, the relationships derived will be appli- Nomenclature
cable only to the particular reservoir considered in this study. Note, a ⳱ constant
however, that there are several general aspects of this exercise Ag ⳱ specific surface area
worth mentioning. One of them is to test the significance of 22 C ⳱ constant
different parameters in the permeability relationships by correlat-
D ⳱ fractal dimension; median grain diameter
ing each of them to permeability individually. The second critical
aspect of the exercise given above is the minimum number of Dd ⳱ dominant grain size
parameters needed to sustain the goodness of the correlation for Dg ⳱ geometric mean of grain diameter
different geological (carbonate) units. The third critical aspect can F ⳱ formation factor
be considered as testing the possibility of the usage of NMR data ID ⳱ deep induction
for more complex systems. From these points of view, the exercise IGR ⳱ gamma ray index
can be thought of as a useful guide for further applications. k ⳱ permeability
Pc ⳱ capillary pressure
Conclusions QV ⳱ exchange cation molarity
1. The permeability/porosity relationship for the chalky carbonate reff ⳱ effective pore radius
sample presented a fractal behavior. Percolation models also Ro ⳱ resistivity of water-saturated rock
could be used for this type of rock. Similarities with the previ-
Rsfl ⳱ shallow resistivity
ously studied sandstone samples were observed. A highly het-
erogeneous carbonate reservoir was also tested, and it was ob- Rt ⳱ true resistivity
served that it is difficult to obtain a permeability/porosity cor- Rw ⳱ resistivity of water
relation with any of these models. Even the correlations derived RR ⳱ resistivity ratio
by MRA in the literature did not show any reasonable CC values. Swi ⳱ irreducible water saturation
2. The MRA was applied to develop permeability correlations with T1 ⳱ proton NMR decay constant
conventional and unconventional well data for this heteroge- T2 ⳱ transverse relaxation time
neous carbonate reservoir that consists of four main geologic T2lm ⳱ logarithmic mean of relaxation time
units. Correlations for the thrombolite and breccia units yielded Vp ⳱ pore volume
high CCs when only data from conventional logs were used. It w ⳱ cementation and tortuosity factor
was observed that the substantial reduction in the number of
⌬t ⳱ sonic travel time
independent variables did not cause a significant decrease
in CC. ␾ ⳱ porosity
3. The other two units, mudstone and grainstone, did not yield ␾c ⳱ threshold (critical) porosity
good correlations with the conventional log data owing to a high ␾NMR ⳱ porosity obtained from NMR
degree of heterogeneity. Therefore, NMR data were used, and a ␥ ⳱ gamma ray index
new definition of the constant a in Eq. 1 (T2 permeability) was ␳D ⳱ bulk density

April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 85


Fig. 15—Validation of permeability correlation (Eq. 4) for the
breccia unit using eighth-well data.
␳o ⳱ oil density
␳w ⳱ water density
␴ ⳱ conductivity of water-saturated rock
␴o ⳱ conductivity of water
␶ ⳱ tortuosity
Acknowledgments
We are thankful to Walter Slijkerman, Ahmed Al-Azkawi, and
Abla Al-Riyami (Petroleum Development Oman) for providing the
data used in the case study. We also thank the Ministry of Oil and
Gas, Oman, for permission to publish this paper.
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Tayfun Babadagli is an associate professor in the Civil and En-
vironmental Engineering Dept., School of Mining and Petro-
leum, at the U. of Alberta. e-mail: tayfun@ualberta.ca. He pre-
viously served on the faculty at Istanbul Technical U., Turkey,
and Sultan Qaboos U., Oman. His areas of interest include
modeling fluid and heat flow in heterogeneous and fractured
reservoirs, reservoir characterization through stochastic and
88
fractal methods and optimization of oil/heavy-oil recovery by
EOR methods. He holds BS and MS degrees from Istanbul Tech-
nical U. and MS and PhD degrees from the U. of Southern
California, all in petroleum engineering. Babadagli is currently
a Technical Editor for SPEREE, for which he received the Out-
standing Technical Editor Award in 2002. He is also a member
of the SPE Education and Professionalism Committee and the
SPE Career Guidance and Student Development Committee.
Previously, he served on the Board of Directors for SPE’s Oman
Section (1998–2001) and as the faculty sponsor of SPE’s student
chapter at Sultan Qaboos U. (1999–2001). In addition, he was
a member of the Steering Committee for the 2003 SPE Forum
Series in the Middle East and the Technical Program Commit-
tee for the 2003 SPE Asia Pacific Improved Oil Recovery Con-
ference. Salem Al-Salmi joined Halliburton as Associated Field
Professional in the Logging and Perforating Dept. in June 2001.
His current position is Field Professional in Brazil-Mossoro. Al-
Salmi holds a BS degree in petroleum engineering from Sultan
Qaboos U.
April 2004 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering