Organic Richness Evaluation through Empirical Methods and Neural Networks

Abstract

SummaryFrom a petrophysical point of view, organic shales are unique and complex formations since play both source and reservoir roles in the petroleum system. Because of this, it is important to compute the total organic carbon content of these formations and convert it to kerogen volume. In order to achieve it, there are many empirical methods developed for different US shale plays. In the current case of study, some of the well-known methods were applied to an Eagle Ford well and the outputs were calibrated to Rock-Eval 6 core data. Thermal maturity was inferred too by means of the pyrolysis results. Furthermore, a neural network for TOC computation was built and the results were statistically compared each other, and the best output was converted to kerogen volume, one of the most important inputs in the subsequent steps in the petrophysical evaluation of organic shales