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The Archie Relationship: Department of Petroleum Engineering

The Archie relationship Porous media consist of mineral, rock fragments and void space. The solids with exception of certain clay minerals (such as shaly sands where clay shales produce electrical conductivity) are nonconductive. Generally the electrical property of a rock depends on void space geometry and the fluids that occupy the void space. The fluid of interest for petroleum engineers are oil, gas and water. Oil and gas are nonconductor and water is conductive when contains dissolved salts

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76 views

The Archie Relationship: Department of Petroleum Engineering

The Archie relationship Porous media consist of mineral, rock fragments and void space. The solids with exception of certain clay minerals (such as shaly sands where clay shales produce electrical conductivity) are nonconductive. Generally the electrical property of a rock depends on void space geometry and the fluids that occupy the void space. The fluid of interest for petroleum engineers are oil, gas and water. Oil and gas are nonconductor and water is conductive when contains dissolved salts

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noormark
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Al Kitab University

Department of petroleum Engineering


The Archie relationship

Porous media consist of mineral, rock fragments and void space. The solids with
exception of certain clay minerals (such as shaly sands where clay shales produce
electrical conductivity) are nonconductive. Generally the electrical property of a
rock depends on void space geometry and the fluids that occupy the void space. The
fluid of interest for petroleum engineers are oil, gas and water. Oil and gas are
nonconductor and water is conductive when contains dissolved salts. Water has
electrolyte conductivity, because electricity conducted by movement of ions. The
resistivity term, as the reciprocal of conductivity, is used to define the ability of a
material to conduct current.

Where:

 r = resistance, ohm
 R = resistivity of, ohm-cm
 A = Cross section area, cm2
 L = Length, cm

The Archie relationship

The Archie relationship simply states that the true resistivity , Rt, is equal to the
product of a factor of the formation, F, the resistivity of saturating brine, Rw and
resistivity index saturation RI, or
Rt = F * Rw * RI

Formation Resistivity Factor : its defined as the ratio of resistivity of


completely brine saturated rock to the resistivity of saturating brine.
2
𝐿𝑒
𝑅𝑤 ∗ ((( )) /∅) 2
𝑅𝑜 𝐿 𝐿𝑒
𝐹= + = (( )) /∅
𝑅𝑤 𝑅𝑤 𝐿

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering
The ratio Le/L is the ratio of the length of tortuous path through the rock to the
length of the rock element. It is commonly termed tortuosity, and in clean uniform
sandstones the squire of this value is approximately equal to the reciprocal of
porosity.

 Ro = Resistivity of fully water saturated rock (Ro is bulk resistivity if pore


space is filled 100% with brine (connate water))
 Rw = Saturating water resistivity (Rw is resistivity of the connate water
itself. This relation applies best for clean (clay free) rocks of constant
porosity when Rw < 1 Ohm-m, at 25C).

It is only defines for porous matrices of negligible electrical conductivity. It is


evident that F is always greater than unity in the absence of electrical conductive
layers. The formation resistivity factor measure the influence of pore structure on
the resistance of sample.
In the absence of a conductive mineral layer the electrical current can flow only
through the fluid in the rock interconnected pores.
This implies that F is related to the porosity of the rock. The influence of pore
structure on the electrical conductivity may be divided into two contributions: the
reduction of the cross section which is available for conduction and the orientation
and length of conduction path.
For isotropic disordered media, the ratio of the cross section available for conduction
to the bulk cross section is equal to the bulk porosity, i.e. F is inversely related to
porosity.

Resistivity and formation factor vary with porosity , rarely natural formations have
uniform geometry, we can express formation factor as :
-m
F=a·
a = constant  1.0 for most formations
m = cementation factor  2 for most formations
Other commonly used values Sandstones:

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering
2
F = 0.8/ (Tixier)
2.15
0.62/ (Humble)

Carbonates
2
F = 0.8/

The formation factor (F) depends on:-


Porosity of the formation,
Pore geometry - tortuosity
Lithology of the formation
Degree of cementation, and
Type and amount of clay in the rock

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering

Resistivity Index

Oil and gas are not electrical conductors. Their presence on element of reservoir
or in core sample will reduce the mean cross-sectional area of the flow path for an
electric current and increase the length of follow path, thus increasing the
resistivity.
Resistivity index is defined as the ratio of rock at any condition of gas, oil and
water saturation to its resistivity when completely saturated with water:

-n
IR=Rt/R0=Sw = 1/Swn

Thus the resistivity index is function of water saturation. Its also a function of
pore geometry. The mean factor influencing saturation exponent, not covered
above, is the formation wettability, oil wetting tend to result in some of water
phase being present in discrete.
Discontinuous globes. Discontinuous water-phase cannot contribute to electrical
follow, hence there will be highest resistivity for a given saturation. the resultant
increase in RI gives steeper slope and higher value of the saturation exponent, n
typically values approach 4 in strongly oil wet reservoirs.

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering

Each curve for a specific core


sample
No conductive materials (clay)
present

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering
Resistivity Index (Rt/Ro) is ratio of the resistivity of a one containing hydrocarbons
to the resistivity of the zone if it were 100 percent water saturated. The following
data indicates the maximum error in calculated water saturation if all variables
except n were correct when used in equation to calculate water saturation.

The recap then, it’s obvious that certain rock properties influence calculated water
saturation, when using the Archie equation or its donatives. The following is the
summery of relationships:-
Rt = F * Rw * RI
-m
F=a·
-n
IR=Rt/R0=Sw = 1/Swn
𝒏 𝑹𝒘 𝒏
𝑺𝒘 = √𝑭 ∗ = √𝑹𝒐/𝑹𝒕
𝑹𝒕

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Al Kitab University
Department of petroleum Engineering
Ex. Determine the resistivity in following chart, and discuss the result.

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