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Well Site Geologists Tasks (Oil field, water resources, mineral deposits) An easy
step to understand well site geology tasks in field (Formation evaluation and
sample description)

Article · February 2018

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 Well Site Geologists Tasks
(Oil field, water resources, mineral deposits)

An easy step to understand well site geology tasks in field

(Formation evaluation and sample description)

MOHSEN ALSHAGHDARI

-2018-
General information
Drilling

Drilling objectives: explore, evaluate and produced hydrocarbons, water, minerals from reservoir.

Oil gas industry and water wells.

Well classifications

1- Exploration wells: to confirm presence hydrocarbons in potential reservoir

identified by geophysical (seismic data).
2- Appraisal wells: to evaluate oil volume and potential production of identified oil
reservoir.
3- Development wells: drilled to produce and optimize oil production in field.

Drilling rigs

•All drilling rigs will include:

-Derrick

-Draw works(Lifting)

-Travelling and Crown Blocks

-Top Drive or Rotary Table

-Mud Circuit: (Mud pits, Mud Pumps, Mud Cleaners)

-Blow Out Preventers: BOP’s

-Electric Generator (SCR room).

Types of drilling rigs
Geologist should know more about drilling equipment , opreations, welll control. But the main task in
oil filed is formation evaluation, sample description, geology of area, rock mechanism (caving
analysis).

Introuduction to geology

Rock cycle : Rock cycle: from magma to surface

Types of rocks:

- Igneous rocks : basalt, granite, gabbro, diorite , etc

- Metamorphic : slate, gneiss, marble, etc
- Sedimentary: shale, sandstone, dolomite, limestone, etc

In oil field we focuse on sedimentary rocks which almost the source and reservoir of oil and gas, even
igneous and metamorphic can observed while drilling.

- Sedimentary Rocks
- A sedimentary rocks …. a rock made of sediments

Sediments: Solid or dissolved particles produced by 3 processes at the surface of the earth :
- Weathering ,Transportation, Deposition
Main Weathering and Transport agents :
Water, wind, ice

Sediments become sedimentary rocks by lithification:

- Compaction , burial, then bottom layers squeezed
- Cementation , mineral "glue" binds the grains

• Transportation
– Movement of sediment away from its source, typically by
water, wind, or ice
– Rounding of particles occurs due to abrasion during transport
– Sorting occurs as sediment is separated according to grain size
by transport agents, especially running water
– Sediment size decreases with increased transport distance

-
- • Deposition
- – Settling and coming to rest of transported material
- – Accumulation of chemical or organic sediments,
- typically in water
- – Environment of deposition is the location in which
- deposition occurs
- • Deep sea floor
- • Beach
- • Desert dunes
- • River channel
- • Lake bottom
-
• Preservation
– Sediment must be preserved, as by burial with additional sediments, in order to become a
sedimentary rock
• Lithification
– General term for processes converting loose sediment into sedimentary rock
– Combination of compaction and cementation
 Types of Sedimentary Rocks

- Clastic sedimentary rocks

- Chemical sedimentary rocks
- Organic sedimentary rocks

• Depositional environment
– Examples: glacial valleys, alluvial fans, river channels and floodplains, lakes, deltas, beaches,
dunes, shallow marine, reefs, deep marine.
Why depostion enviroinment are very important for geologist in location ?

The knowledge depostion enviroinment is helpful to figure out the type of cutting come out the
well, for example when you drill and your cutting is clastic and mixed with koaline, some
bigginer geologists consider koalin as anhydrite, this big mistake if you understand the
depostion enviroinment and how to test samples will not got mistake like that, later I will
explaine how to exmine samples under microscope and other equipments.

There is three services in location should help you as geologist to get more information about
samples!

Mud logging services : Cuttings / caving, geochemical samples, mud samples, gas samples, mud
additives etc. also advanced mud logging ( Advanced cutting exmaination)

Wire line , LWD: Pressure point (RCI, MDT), sidewall coring, Formation fluid sampling: 1 gal
chambers, PVT’s, Single Phase sampling (WL)

Coring: (all information about formation fluids, permeability. porosity, geological structures)

How to prepare for sampling?

 When sample ready to exmine . first check under microscope physical properties : color,
hardness, grain size, crystallization, porosity, oil shows if oil well. Second check under
flouroscope( checking oil shows and describe it, also perform calcimetry to figure out what type
of carbonate rocks (limestone, dolomite, marl, argillecous limestone .

calcimetry reading to know what type of carbonate rocks

Responsibilities of WSG
Mud logging services
•Supervises all sampling operations on the rig

•Mudlogging before drilling: make sure crew has knowledge and experience about sampling,
read and understand drilling program

•Check all equipment and inventory needed for sampling

•Make sure equipment are properly installed, checked and calibrated

•Crosscheck with crew backup and spare equipment are ready to use (according to the
contract)

•Mudlogging while drilling:

Proper position sampling plate at the shakers, sieves selection; proper labeling all samples,
bags, boxes5 Initials

-Description of samples

•Rock name

•Rock Color / Grain Color

•Hardness How resistant are the cuttings to applied force

•Cuttings Shape General shape of cuttings

•Grain Size Use standard grain size charts, mainly sandstones

•Grain Shape & surface Use grain shape & surface chart, mainly sandstones

•Sorting Use sorting chart, mainly sandstones

•Cementation/Matrix Types of cement and matrix

•Porosity/Permeability Raw visual determinations only

•Accessory Minerals Glauconite, Mica, …

•Unusual Features Microfossils, fissures, etc.

•Hydrocarbon Shows

Samples taken outside the main sampling sequence (interval) is spot sample.

A "spot" sample should be taken by mudloggers whenever questions arise concerning down
hole conditions, including:

•At the end of circulation prior to tripping out

•One lag time after a drilling break is confirmed for 3 m (10 feet)

•One lag time after change in torque and / or stand pipe pressure indicates bit problems
Wireline/LWD sampling:
•Equipment installed, checked and tested before running in hole. Check backup equipment
available onboard. Conduct the TBT with crew before operation get started

•Witnessing wireline operations in wireline unit

•Record container type and serial number

•Assist the team while emptying 1 gallon chambers on the rig, record pressure from the
chamber, measure volume of gas at atmospheric pressure, analyze gas in chromatograph by
diluting it with air (start with 10 times)

Sidewall Coring
•Make sure tools are ready,crew knows depth of core to be collected

•Side wall core sare drilled and recovered in one single container.

•GRorSP is runwith SCST for depth correlations.

•Minimum hole size is 8".

Coring:
•Make sure all necessary equipment and crew is onboard before the job.

•Confirm officec ore point selection and confirmation

•Check with mudlogging crewf or presence of allmarkers, measuring tape, ragsetc.

•While corebarrelisat surface record surface core GR(ifrequested)before tocut core in to pieces.

•Using screw driver gently break corechips for description.

•Supervise packing/shipment/dispatching of core with proper documentation

•During coring,mudlogging crew continue to collect samples for geological control.

•Stand clear when the barrel is open as it may contain toxic gases,wear correct PPE
Caving analysis
CavingsAnalysisprovidesthekeytomanagingwellborestabilityinrealtime

•A warning signal that the wellbore is failing.

•An indication of which formations are unstable.

•Evidence of the mode of wellbore failure.

•Information to decide the appropriate remedial action –e.g. improve wellbore cleaning or
increase mud weight. Why? See down
Well site geologist for mineral exploration
Economic geology is a mixtum compositum of all geoscientific disciplines focused on one goal,
finding new mineral depsosits and enhancing their exploitation. The keystones of this mixtum
compositum are geology and mineralogy whose studies are centered around the emplacement
of the ore body and the development of its minerals and rocks.(Harld.dill).

Mineral deposits and economic geology

Mineral deposits resulted from physical–chemical changes in theatmosphere, hydrosphere and

lithosphere (crust and the upper mantle).There are physical barriers hampering our access to
mineral deposits, such as mining depth controlled among others by the geothermal gradients (5
km will hardly be crossed by exploitation methods in the foreseeable future) and the vast
oceans, which cover more than 2/3 of the Earth surface. Manganese nodules arewidely
knownas a potential source of Mn, Cu andNi, but neither the technical nor the jurisdictional
issues have so far been solved to everybody's satisfaction, so that a vast part of the sea has still
to be considered as an area of scientific research of black and white smokers, rather than an
area of exploration and exploitation of mineral deposits. On the other hand,who can exclude
that future generationswill extract all elements from seawater and consider the ocean as the
only inexhaustible low-grade, large-tonnage deposit on earth? The first step has already been
takenwith some alkaline, earth alkaline and halogenides recovered from seawater. For the time
being, a growing demand for mineral raw materials and, unlike organic raw materials, with only
a few of the inorganic raw materials being renewable in a life-time, mineral resources are
limited. We are in need of the knowledge and experience provided by economic geologists
from academia and application (Gocht, 1978; Saager, 1984). Economic geology is not a
discipline of its own, it is a mixtum compositumof various subjects of earth sciences dedicated
to find new inorganic raw materials and enhance the exploitation of those already known.
Geology and mineralogy are the key players in achieving these goals. (Harld.dill).
What is an Ore Deposit?
The term “ore deposit” has a specific meaning in the geological literature, being a mass of rock
that contains a useful element, compound or mineral with a grade (concentration) and total
amount sufficiently high that the material can be mined economically. Copper, Au and Fe are
the most important metals in terms of value of global production. As explained in Section 1, ore
deposits are an important subset of the broader term “mineral deposits”, which include natural
concentrations of elements or minerals. Metals and minerals become concentrated by many
processes into a wide variety of ore deposits that form in four main geologic environments,
orthomagmatic, hydrothermal, sedimentary and weathering

The main task for well site geologists

- Study geology of area

- Collect samples and exmine it (petrography study)
- Geochemical study ( rocks, soils, stream sediments, plant)

Exploration Techniques

-
Geology

Geological mapping at various scales and geological observation are integral to exploration, and provide a means of identifying
mineral deposits that crop out (Schodde, 2014b). Of particular use to exploration geologists are the metallogenic maps that
some government agencies produce. These maps provide valuable mineralization-related information that geologists use in
conjunction with ore body models to assess how prospective an area may be for different types of deposits.
Geochemistry
Exploration geochemistry, or geochemical prospecting (Ginzburg, 1960; Kyser et al., 2015), was developed in western countries
in parallel with improvements in trace element analysis in the 1940s (Hawkes, 1957), about 15 years after analytical exploration
geochemistry was first carried out on soils in the Soviet Union in 1932. Various types of geochemical survey are employed
depending on the type of ore deposit target and its geological setting, using the most appropriate media – e.g., drainage
(stream sediment), soil or talus, rock, vegetation and ground water – for the environment). Increasingly, geochemical methods
are being tested for use in terrain where ore deposits may be covered (Kelley et al., 2006).
Geophysics
Geophysical techniques (Butler, 2005; Dentith and Mudge, 2014) can be used to measure gravity, magnetic intensity,
radioactivity, and several types of electrical response, including those produced by magnetotelluric effects. Most of these
surveys can be conducted from the air as well as on the ground. Seismic surveys are ground based and, although useful in
petroleum and coal exploration, distinguishing possible ore reflectors from geological units is a limitation in non-sedimentary
environments.
Drilling
Drilling is the principal discovery and assessment technique used in exploration. And also during the various stages of mine
development and closure investigation, simply because it provides the only cost-effective and efficient means of collecting a
large number of samples in the subsurface. After discovery, as a discovered mineral deposit advances through mining study
stages, the purpose of drilling transforms from outlining an initial resource to detailed resource definition by infill drilling
 References

- Lectures persentations from schlumberger

- Future Global mineral resources ( geochemical prospectives bulliten).

- Thechess board classification scheme of mineral deposits ,Mineralogy and geology.

(Dill 2010)

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