Egyptian Journal of Petroleum (2016) 25, 215–220

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Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute

Egyptian Journal of Petroleum

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FULL LENGTH ARTICLE

Flow-units verification, using statistical zonation

and application of Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz
Plot in Tabnak gas field
Seyed Kourosh Mahjour a,*, Mohammad Kamal Ghasem Al-Askari b,
Mohsen Masihi c

a
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
b
Petroleum University of Technology, Ahwaz, Iran
c
Sharif University of Technology, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, P.O. Box: 11365-9465, Tehran, Iran

Received 29 December 2014; revised 19 April 2015; accepted 17 May 2015

Available online 28 November 2015

KEYWORDS Abstract The relationship between two main reservoir parameters being porosity and permeabil-
Flow-units; ity, in the carbonate rocks is very complex and obscure. To get a better understanding on flow
Statistical zonation; behavior, the relationship of porosity and permeability of reservoir units, reservoir zonation and
Stratigraphic Modified Lor- flow units were defined. The significance of dividing the sedimentary intervals into flow units reflects
enz Plot; groups of rocks that have similar geologic, physical properties and depositional environment that
Porosity; affect fluid flow. Variations in rock properties result from depositional, diagenetic and post-
Permeability depositional changes. A flow unit is a volume of a reservoir rock that is continuous laterally and
vertically and has similar averages of those rock properties that affect fluid flow. Different methods
exist for the zonation of reservoirs based on petrophysical data and well logs; among them are:
Permeability–Porosity cross plot, Pickett and Soder and Gill methods. In this study, the flow units
are determined in Tabnak gas field in South of Iran based on Testerman Zonation Technique and
Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot (SMLP) methods. For determining these units, conflation of
petrophysical data and comparing porosity and permeability of cores are done for verification three
wells. By comparing flow-units derived from two methods, it was realized that in permeable zones
they have a relatively valid correlation.
Ó 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research
Institute. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.K. Mahjour), Accurate reservoir characterization requires the integration of
[email protected] (M.K.G. Al-Askari), [email protected] core and log data to understand the variation in hydraulic
(M. Masihi). properties such as porosity, permeability and capillary pres-
Peer review under responsibility of Egyptian Petroleum Research sure. The concept of hydraulic flow units has widely been used
Institute.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpe.2015.05.018
1110-0621 Ó 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
216 S.K. Mahjour et al.

in reservoir characterization and permeability prediction

studies [1–7]. In fact the definition of hydraulic flow units
allowed a better petrophysical characterization and description
of the field and can be used as inputs for construction of
reservoir model.
Numerous studies have been conducted on this topic and
the results show an improved reservoir characterization by
classifying reservoir rock into HUs. Gardner and Albrechtsons
[8] observed a significant improvement in the reservoir descrip-
tion through the refinement of permeability model using HU
concept. Svirsky et al. [5] were able to resolve the challenges
in Siberian Oil field using the concept of hydraulic flow units Figure 1 Tabnak gas field position [15].
(HUs). Guo et al. [9] showed that hydraulic flow concept
proved to be an effective technique for rock-typing in clastic flow-units the Testerman statistical zonation is used. For
reservoirs in South America. Shenawi et al. [10] developed gen- statistical zonation, description of a quantitative and variable
eralized porosity–permeability transforms based on hydraulic reservoir is essential. According to this point that transporta-
unit technique with excellent accuracy for carbonate reservoirs tion and fluid production is a function of permeability, for
in Saudi Arabia. Orodu et al. [11] expressed a satisfactory esti- introduction of fluid flow-units this petrophysical term should
mation of permeability from HUs, considering high reservoir be used [16]. Also in a supplementary study and for evaluating
heterogeneity, availability of less number of cored wells and accuracy of statistical zonation, the Stratigraphic Modified
poor well log response correlation to permeability. Shahvar Lorenz Plot (SMLP) was used. The used data in this method
et al. [7] observed an enhanced prediction of relative perme- are usual core analysis (porosity and permeability).
ability by discretizing reservoir rock based on hydraulic flow
units for a carbonate reservoir in Iran. Recently, Nooruddin
4. Statistical zonation technique
and Hossain [12] developed a porosity–permeability model
employing new parameters with conventional Kozeny–
Carman model. They used 30,000 data points of an existing A statistical zonation technique has been successfully used to
Middle East field. The results show an excellent agreement detect significant differences between samples. The object in
with the data. the problem of zonation is to detect the existence of distinct
Considering the aim, selected scale and available data there vertical sections or flow units within the permeability profile
are different ways for determination of flow-units. In this of each well in the reservoir. The reservoir zonation technique
study, the methods used determine flow-units by method of is a two-step operation.
statistical zonation [13] and Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz
Plot [14] and comparing these two methods is done for three 1. Permeability data from the top to bottom of the strata of a
wells in Tabnak gas field in South of Iran. single well are divided into two zones. These zones are
This article presents a statistical zonation technique selected such that the variation of permeability within
developed by Testerman [13] to identify and describe porous the zones is minimized and maximized between zones.
and permeable zones in a reservoir, and for determining which Statistical Eq. (1) used to zone the permeability data is:
ones are likely to be continuous between adjacent wells. Also 1 hXl 
  2
i
B¼ m i kl:  k:: ð1Þ
another method is Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot [14]. L1 i¼1
Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot (SMLP) is a plot of
The variance within any zone, W, is computed from:
percent flow capacity versus percent.
1 hXL Xmi  i
Storage capacity is ordered in stratigraphic sequence. If the ðkl:  k:: Þ
2
W¼ ð2Þ
data are continuous (smoothed), they should be constructed N1 i¼1 j¼1

using every sample available. Zonation index, R, is

BW
2. Description of the field R¼ ð3Þ
W

Tabnak gas field has been discovered in 1963 and is the biggest The zonation of individual wells is a multi-step procedure:
onshore sweet gas field in Iran which found a significant (a) First, the permeability data, in their original order of
importance because of the sweetness of its gas and capability depth, are divided into all possible combinations of
of ready release of its gas into global pipeline. This field is two zones. Then, Eqs. (1)–(3), are used to calculate
placed in south of Iran, in south-west of Lamerd, in east side for each of these possible two zone combinations.
of Asalouyeh anticline. Dashtak, Kangaan, and upper Dalaan The zonation index calculated from Eq. (3) is the crite-
stratas are in this hydrocarbon containing field. Fig. 1 shows rion used to indicate the best division. R, which ranges
position of Tabnak gas field. between 0 and 1, indicates how closely the division
corresponds to homogeneous zones. The closer R is
to 1, the more homogeneous are the zones. The larger
3. Data and methodology R value denotes the best division into two zones,
is retained for comparison with other indices. Any
Cores from three drilled wells in subsurface stratas of Tabnak negative values of R are replaced by zero in order to
gas field have been used in this study, and for specifying conform to the definition of R.
Statistical zonation and application of Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot 217

(b) The permeability data of the best two-zone combina-

Table 1 Statistical indexes of core permeability data zonation
tion are divided into all possible three-zone combina-
using Testerman method in well ‘‘A”.
tions. The zonation index R is again calculated for
determining the best three-zone division. Zone Number Average Thickness Standard
(c) The permeability data of the three-zone combinations no. of data permeability (m) deviation
are divided into all possible four-zone combinations. (mD)
Then the zonation index criterion is applied.The divi- 1 28 2.641 6.74 1.727
sion into additional zones continues until the difference 2 4 11.696 0.72 6.189
between two successive indices, DR, is negligible. In this 3 6 2.407 1.36 1.31
study the difference is negligible if R <0.005.

2. After all zones are determined for each well used in this
study, the second portion of the calculation is undertaken.
Table 2 Statistical indexes of core permeability data zonation
This part correlates the zones throughout the reservoir to
using Testerman method in well ‘‘B”.
aid the engineer in determining the continuity of the strata.
The correlation is based on a statistical comparison of the Zone Number Average Thickness Standard
difference of means of two zones in adjoining wells with no. of data permeability (m) deviation
the difference that could be expected from variation of mea- (mD)
surements within zones. If the difference of means is less 1 50 1.19 43.33 1.99
than or equal to that expected from individual data varia- 2 1 22.544 0.43 –
tion, the zones represented by the means are considered 3 5 0.891 3.28 0.942
to correlate and, by inference, be continuous. The mathe-
matical statement is given by Eq. (4).
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  ffi
  1 1 1
kh:  ki: > þ szðv;pÞ ð4Þ Table 3 Statistical indexes of core permeability data zonation
2 nh ni
using Testerman method in well ‘‘C”.
Harter [17] provides a table of Z-values. If the left side of
Zone Number Average Thickness Standard
Eq. (4) is larger than the right side, the zones represented no. of data permeability (m) deviation
by the two means are considered, on the basis of statistics, (mD)
to be different. However, if the left side of Eq. (4) is smaller
1 23 0.912 4.33 0.783
than the right side, the zones correlate and considered to be
2 90 7.96 16.63 11.793
continuous. 3 54 0.86 10.36 1.053

The following steps are suggested as a conventional and

efficient manner to apply this technique:

(1) Rank well-zone means in the order of decreasing magni- using Eq. (4). Investigations showed that the introduced zones
tude of permeability are extended and continuous around three studied wells.
(2) Calculate variance with Eq. (2) using all permeability
data in the entire reservoir. 5. Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot
(3) Calculate the standard deviation from Step 2.
(4) Select the z-values for a 99% probability level (Zv, p) Modified Lorenz Plots (SMLPs) were constructed after Gunter
(5) Multiply the z-values in Step 4 by the standard deviation et al. [14], in order to define petrophysical flow units within
in Step 3, e. g., F,p = Szv,p wells. SMLP illustrate cumulative flow capacity (cumulative
(6) Test the significant differences among well – flow unit %Kh) versus the cumulative storage capacity (cumulative %
means. First the largest mean is compared with each KU) ordered in the stratigraphic sequence of the reservoir.
of the smaller means. Figs. 2–4 illustrate SMLP derived from core analysis data.

Finally the means can be divided into separate groups,

which are not significantly different.
Considering high amounts of data and for attaining opti-
mum zonation using Testerman method, hand calculation isn’t
possible or at least faces with numerous problems, therefore
for simplicity of operation and fast zonation, composing pro-
gram code for calculations is inevitable. This code is composed
in MatlabÒ software. Because of limitation in composing all
the calculations, in this paper we proceed only to mention
results in three wells. Tables 1–3 show statistical zonation
resulted from permeability data of cores in three wells. As indi-
cated, wells A, B and C are constituted by three zones. After Figure 2 Zonation resulted by core porosity and permeability
each well zoned separately, the continuity of zone was pursued data using SMLP in well ‘‘A”.
218 S.K. Mahjour et al.

Table 5 Average thickness and permeability of each zone

using Testerman method.
Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3
Average permeability (mD) 1.482 8.32 1.05
Average thickness (m) 18.33 5.92 5

Figure 3 Zonation resulted by core porosity and permeability C. And zone 3, similar to zone 1 has low permeability and its
data using SMLP in well ‘‘B”. thickness in wells A and B is less than C. Also it was under-
stood that thickness of layers with high permeability is less
than layers with low permeability, averagely. Table 4 shows
a précis of these results and Table 5 shows average thickness
and permeability of each zone.
Based on results of Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz (SMLP)
method, it was understood that wells A and B include four and
well C has five flow-units. According to slopes, it seems that
flow-unit 3 (FU 3) in wells A and B and flow-unit 2 (FU 2)
in well C, have the best reservoir quality. Tables 6–8 show
zonation according to permeability and porosity data resulted
Figure 4 Zonation resulted by core porosity and permeability by Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot (SMLP) method in
data using SMLP in well ‘‘C”. three wells with statistical indexes.
Comparisons showed that zonation and specifying flow-
units in Tabnak gas field by Testerman statistical zonation
Inflection points indicate changes in flow or storage capacity, and Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz (SMLP) method have
allowing for the evaluation of reservoir flow. Steeper slopes agreeable conformation. Figs. 5 and 6 show it distinctively.
indicate faster rates of flow; similarly, horizontal trends indi- Dark colored parts of these figures show permeable zones.
cate little to no flow. The relatively constant 45° trend of the
storage capacity line indicates that storage capacity is uni- 7. Conclusion
formly distributed throughout the reservoir. Where the two
lines overlap or plot closely together, all pores are contributing This study provides two solutions to divide a reservoir into
equally to flow; inter-crystalline or inter-particle porosity flow zones with respect to their physical properties with the
could yield such a trend. Where separation occurs, different data available from Tabnak gas field, Iran. Testerman statisti-
pores are contributing more to flow than others; moldic or cal zonation Technique has shown how basic statistical tools
vuggy porosity could plot in this manner. can be used as a means to uniquely sub-divide reservoir into
According to the method they introduced, Construct the volumes that are more homogeneous. Also this model was
stratigraphic modified Lorenz plot (SMLP) by computing on developed to extend the application of statistical zonation
a foot-foot basis the percent flow capacity (permeability thick- technique to the wells without core data by utilizing the pre-
ness) and percent flow storage (porosity thickness) (Figs. 2–4). dicted permeability values from log data.
Parts with high slope have more flow capacity percent com- Testerman statistical zonation method has been used as a
pared to storage capacity, and therefore, have higher reservoir powerful tool for determination of flow-units and their conti-
process speed which are known as fast (reservoir) zones. Parts nuity, moreover in this study, this method reservoir flowing
of curve with lesser slope and more plain have low flow capac- zone from tight zones resulting in splitting the reservoir into
ity known as tight zones [18]. three flow-units. Also based on Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz
Plot (SMLP), using core porosity and permeability data, flow
6. Results and discussion units with very weak flow properties were signified and intro-
duced as interlayers with potential of creating separation in
According to results from Testerman statistical zonation it was reservoir. Because of low capability for disjunction and includ-
characterized that zone 1 has low permeability and its thick- ing the whole thickness of a sedimentation truck system, Flow-
ness in wells A and C is less than B. Zone 2 has a relatively units represented by Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot
high permeability and its thickness in wells A and B is less than (SMLP) is compatible in field scale and have vast extended

Table 4 Continuity types between zones of studied wells using Testerman method.
Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3
Well Zone no. Average permeability (mD) Well Zone no. Average permeability (mD) Well Zone no. Average permeability (mD)
A 1 2.461 A 2 11.696 A 3 2.407
B 1 1.19 B 2 22.544 B 3 0.891
C 1 0.912 C 2 8.04 C 3 0.86
Statistical zonation and application of Stratigraphic Modified Lorenz Plot 219

Table 6 Statistical indexes of core permeability and porosity data using SMLP method in well ‘‘A”.
Zone Number of Average permeability Average porosity Thickness Permeability standard Porosity standard
no. data (mD) (%) (m) deviation deviation
1 15 2.94 18.80 4.72 2.07 7.22
2 13 1.89 21.71 1.9 1.02 3.12
3 4 11.69 2586 0.63 6.19 2.32
4 6 2.40 22.14 1.23 1.30 1.73

Table 7 Statistical indexes of core permeability and porosity data using SMLP method in well ‘‘B”.
Zone Number of Average permeability Average porosity Thickness Permeability standard Porosity standard
no. data (mD) (%) (m) deviation deviation
1 21 1.84 5.67 19.53 2.70 4.60
2 28 0.71 5.66 22.74 1.07 3.29
3 2 22.54 4.21 0.43 1.32 2.51
4 5 0.89 3.61 3.28 0.94 1.37

Table 8 Statistical indexes of core permeability and porosity data using SMLP method in well ‘‘C”.
Zone Number of Average permeability Average porosity Thickness Permeability standard Porosity standard
no. data (mD) (%) (m) deviation deviation
1 23 0.91 12.08 4.33 0.78 8.11
2 4 47.57 22.90 0.56 34.40 0.88
3 59 4.39 20.07 11.02 4.04 6.51
4 27 9.89 21.51 4.24 4.90 2.45
5 54 0.86 14.05 10.36 1.05 8.22

cross section. Therefore Testerman statistical zonation signifies

high permeability zones agreeably and can be used as a suit-
able tool for specifying total situation and flow frame in reser-
voir scale.

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