The relationship between petrophysical properties and geological facies of carbonates

Abstract

In order to relate petrophysical properties to the facies descriptions provided in the geological description of the core, petrophysical properties, such as capillary pressure and resistivity index data, were measured for the Dune field carbonate cores in the Permian Basin of West Texas using the porous plate capillary desaturation cell. Porosity-permeability, permeability-irreducible water saturation, log derived facies-geological facies, capillary pressure, and resistivity behavior were studied throughout the research. The results showed the degree of correlation between the geologically defined lithofacies and the measured petrophysical properties. Saturation exponents for the Dune field cores found to be lie between 1.6 and 2.5, and the cementation exponents were approximately 2.2.