Formation evaluation

In petroleum exploration and development, formation evaluation is used to determine the ability of a borehole to produce petroleum. Essentially, it is the process of "recognizing a commercial well when you drill one".

Modern rotary drilling usually uses a heavy mud as a lubricant and as a means of producing a confining pressure against the formation face in the borehole, preventing blowouts. Only in rare and catastrophic cases, do oil and gas wells come in with a fountain of gushing oil. In real life, that is a blowout—and usually also a financial and environmental disaster. But controlling blowouts has drawbacks—mud filtrate soaks into the formation around the borehole and a mud cake plasters the sides of the hole. These factors obscure the possible presence of oil or gas in even very porous formations. Further complicating the problem is the widespread occurrence of small amounts of petroleum in the rocks of many sedimentary provinces. In fact, if a sedimentary province is absolutely barren of traces of petroleum, it is not feasible to continue drilling there.

The formation evaluation problem is a matter of answering two questions:

It is complicated by the impossibility of directly examining the formation. It is, in short, the problem of looking at the formation indirectly.

Tools to detect oil and gas have been evolving for over a century. The simplest and most direct tool is well cuttings examination. Some older oilmen ground the cuttings between their teeth and tasted to see if crude oil was present. Today, a wellsite geologist or mudlogger uses a low powered stereoscopic microscope to determine the lithology of the formation being drilled and to estimate porosity and possible oil staining. A portable ultraviolet light chamber or "Spook Box" is used to examine the cuttings for fluorescence. Fluorescence can be an indication of crude oil staining, or of the presence of fluorescent minerals. They can be differentiated by placing the cuttings in a solvent filled watchglass or dimple dish. The solvent is usually carbon tetrachlorethane. Crude oil dissolves and then redeposits as a fluorescent ring when the solvent evaporates. The written strip chart recording of these examinations is called a sample log or mudlog.

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