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Determination of electrofacies using wireline logs based on multivariate statistical analysis for the Kareem Formation, Gulf of Suez, Egypt

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Abstract

Beyond the traditional use of well logs, electrofacies were introduced to define a set of log responses that can be used to characterize a bed and permitted it to be distinguished from the other rock units. Classification of a formation into electrofacies can be used in reservoir characterization and discrimination. Due to the hydrocarbon potential of the Kareem Formation, we used the conventional well logs of four boreholes and a traditional core analyses data from one of these wells to identify electrofacies of the Kareem Formation in the Southern Gulf of Suez. Multivariate statistical analyses, such as principal component analysis ‘PCA’ and cluster analysis, were used for this purpose. The multivariate statistical analyses were applied to the raw log data, the normalized data and the standardized log data. Three PC components were obtained from the analyses, and six distinctive electrofacies were extracted from the dendrogram plot. These electrofacies showed good correlation with the lithofacies that were described from core analysis. In addition, applying the reservoir zonation of the studied formation using the stratigraphic modified Lorenz ‘SML’ plot and the sum of squared errors ‘SSE’ methods led to its discrimination into four hydraulic flow units. The deduced flow units were validated against the available core data.

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Compiled from Evans (1988), Patton et al. (1994) and Omran and El Sharawy 2014)

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Modified after EGPC (1996)

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their great comments that improved and reconstructed the manuscript. We would like also to give thanks to the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Gunter Doerhoefer whose patience and insightful suggestions have led to a new concise revised version. Thanks have to be extended to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation ‘EGPC’ and the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company ‘GUPCO’ for releasing the data. Eventually, the science and technology development fund ‘STDF’ of Egypt has to be acknowledged for introducing the fund of the present study through project number 4097.

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  1. Department of Geophysical Sciences, National Research Centre, Cairo, Egypt

    Mohamed S. El Sharawy & Bassem S. Nabawy

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  1. Mohamed S. El Sharawy
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  2. Bassem S. Nabawy
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Correspondence to Bassem S. Nabawy.

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El Sharawy, M.S., Nabawy, B.S. Determination of electrofacies using wireline logs based on multivariate statistical analysis for the Kareem Formation, Gulf of Suez, Egypt. Environ Earth Sci 75, 1394 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6214-0

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