Case Study: Sound-Speed Measurement: Unique Measurement Across All Fluids for In-Situ Properties
Authors: Hunnur Anup T. 
Published: October 2021

Fluid samples collected using either wireline or logging-while-drilling (LWD) formation-testing technology for reservoir fluid characterization have long been accepted as the most representative of reservoir fluid. This, though, comes with a caveat that the collected sample is clean and devoid of any mud-filtrate contamination. With both techniques performed soon after drilling a well, there is always a risk of contaminating the collected fluid with mud filtrate.

Toward the goal of reducing this risk, since the early 2000s, technologies have been brought forth to help identify the fluid down hole. There have been multiple developments with sensors for absorbance spectroscopy, fluorescence, fluid resistivity, fluid refractive index, and so on. Each sensor development was targeted toward a specific fluid interaction with the mud filtrate, thereby helping to differentiate the reservoir fluid from the mud filtrate.

Downhole sampling conditions can be classified into two broad groups: one case where the reservoir fluid is miscible with the mud filtrate and the other where the reservoir fluid is not miscible with the mud filtrate. The immiscible cases are generally straightforward, since sensors such as absorbance spectroscopy can easily differentiate among oil, water, and gas. In addition, the technique can be used to determine the fractional portion of each phase in the flow. Complications arise when the reservoir fluids happen to be miscible with the mud filtrate system; for example, while sampling reservoir water in the presence of water-based mud filtrate, absorbance spectroscopy by itself is unable to differentiate among the fluids.

Table 1 provides generic information about different fluid systems as well as the sensors used to differentiate the fluids. While there are other sources of correlation-based fluid-property information, the basic sensors mentioned are the ones used for correlations. As mentioned, each sensor provides detailed information for specific cases, but only sound speed provides a single-sensor solution for the conditions expected.

Sound-Speed (SS) Measurement

While acoustic data have long been used for reservoir characterization, data have been used for fluid characterization during downhole sampling for only a decade. Experience has shown that this measurement is sensitive enough to not only differentiate injection water or formation water but also to track and quantify small changes in oil compressibility—an important step in focused sampling. The measurement uses a pulse-echo technique based on the principle that an acoustic signal propagates approximately as a plane wave, and that the speed of sound is based on the distance the pulse travels divided by the time it took to traverse the distance. (SPWLA-2013-FFF).

The 10-MHz piezoelectric transducer is mounted onto a machined flat surface on the flowline of RCX (the wireline formation testing tool reservoir characterization instrument) as schematically shown in Fig. 1. The travel path length is the distance between the two internal surfaces of the flowline. The result was a bulk measurement of the speed of sound across all the fluid flowing though the flowline. The only calibration needed is for this path length, which can differ due to slight machining variations. A calibrated sensor was able to differentiate fluids which exhibited sound-speed differences as small as 4.7 m/sec (0.5 msec/ft of sound-speed slowness).