Advanced Acquisition and Management Petrographic Information from Reservoir Rocks using Petroledge® System

AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition 2007

Paper published at AAPG, in Long Beach, USA (April, 2007).

Abstract
The precise and comprehensive description of the textural and compositional features of reservoir rocks is crucial in petroleum exploration. However, in order to substantially contribute to decrease exploration risks and increase hydrocarbon production efficiency, petrographic reservoir characterization must include not only information on the volumes of detrital and diagenetic constituents and pore types, but also a detailed record of their habits, locations, modifications and paragenetic inter-relations, which strongly control porosity and permeability, as well as log and seismic signatures. The Petroledge® system is an intelligent database application created to support the detailed petrographic analysis and interpretation of reservoirs, combining resources from relational databases and knowledge-based expert systems. Systematic description is facilitated by the use of flexible menus with standardized nomenclature and parameters, what radically reduces description time and errors. An integrated electromechanical microscope stage allows an optimized modal quantification through point-counting, as well as the generation of a virtual map of the thin section, storing the spatial position of each petrographic feature and associated information. A relational database system guarantees safe data storage, distribution, integrity and recovery. The system provides compositional classifications, interpretations of tectonic provenance modes and diagenetic environments using Artificial Intelligence methods, along with multidimensional online consultation, statistical and graphic processing of petrographic data, which are essential for the design of reservoir, optimized recovery and quality prediction models.