Geological formation resistivity is determined. Circuitry is located within the borehole casing that is adjacent to the geological formation. The circuitry can measure one or more voltages across two or more voltage measurement electrodes associated with the borehole casing. The measured voltages are used by a processor to determine the resistivity of the geological formation. A common mode signal can also be reduced using the circuitry.
This application is a Continuation-in-Part application of a Continuation application that is entitled "Determining Resistivity of a Formation Adjacent to a Borehole Having Casing with an Apparatus Having All Current Conducting Electrodes Within the Cased Well"; which is Ser. No. 09/877,521; which has a filing date of Jun. 8, 2001 now abandoned. An entire copy of Ser. No. 09/877,521 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 09/877,521 is a Continuation application of a Continuation-in-Part application that is entitled "Determining Resistivity of a Formation Adjacent to a Borehole Having Casing with an Apparatus Having All Current Conducting Electrodes Within the Cased Well"; which is Ser. No. 09/310,312; which has a filing date of May 12, 1999, and which issued on Jun. 12, 2001, as U.S. Pat. No. 6,246,240 {"Vail(240)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 09/310,312 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 09/310,312 is a Continuation-in-Part application of a Divisional application that is entitled "Determining Resistivity of a Formation Adjacent to a Borehole Having Casing by Generating Constant Current Flow in Portion of Casing and Using at Least Two Voltage Measurement Electrodes"; which is Ser. No. 08/738,924; which has the filing date of Oct. 28, 1996; and which issued on Feb. 15, 2000, as U.S. Pat. No. 6,025,721 {"Vail (721)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/738,924 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 08/738,924 is a Divisional application of a Continuation-in-Part application that is entitled "Determining Resistivity of a Formation Adjacent to a Borehole Having Casing Using Multiple Electrodes and With Resistances Being Defined Between the Electrodes"; which is Ser. No. 08/083,615; which has the filing date of Jun. 28, 1993; and which issued on Oct. 29, 1996 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,024 {"Vail(024)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/083,615 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 08/083,615 is a Continuation-in-Part application of an earlier Divisional application that is entitled "Methods of Operation of Apparatus Measuring Formation Resistivity From Within a Cased Well Having One Measurement and Two Compensation Steps"; which is Ser. No. 07/754,965; which has the filing date of Sep. 4, 1991; and that issued on Jun. 29, 1993 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,794 {"Vail(794)"}. A entire copy of Ser. No. 07/754,965 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 07/754,965 is a Divisional application of an earlier Continuation-in-Part application that is entitled "Electronic Measurement Apparatus Movable In a Cased 0Borehole and Compensating for Casing Resistance Differences"; which is Ser. No. 07/434,886; which has the filing date of Nov. 13, 1989; and which issued on Dec. 24, 1991 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,075,626 {"Vail(626)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 07/434,886 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 07/434,886 is a Continuation-in-Part application of an earlier Continuation-in-Part application having the title of "Methods and Apparatus for Measurement of Electronic Properties of Geological Formations Through Borehole Casing"; which is Ser. No. 07/089,697; which has the filing date of Aug. 26, 1987; and which issued on Nov. 21, 1989 as U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,542 {"Vail(542)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 07/089,697 is included herein by reference.
Ser. No. 07/089,697 is a Continuation-in-Part application of the original Parent application having the title "Methods and Apparatus for Measurement of the Resistivity of Geological Formations from Within Cased Boreholes"; which is Ser. No. 06/927,115; which has the filing date of Nov. 4, 1986; and which issued on Apr. 11, 1989 as U.S. Pat. No. 4,820,989 {"Vail(989)"}. An entire copy of Ser. No. 06/927,115 is included herein by reference.
The above paragraphs define a total of 7 issued U.S. patents, and 1 co-pending U.S. patent application, that show the "direct chain" of applications leading to the application herein.
However, there are an additional 8 U.S. patents that have issued that are related to this application. These are defined in the following, respectively enumerated as (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) and (vii).
(i) U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,669 {"Vail(669)"} entitled "Methods and Apparatus for Measurement of the Resistivity of Geological Formations From Within Cased Wells in Presence of Acoustic and Magnetic Energy Sources"; that issued on Aug. 27, 1991; that is Ser. No. 07/438,268; that has the filing date of Nov. 16, 1989; and that is a Continuation-in-Part application of Ser. No. 07/089,697. An entire copy of Ser. No. 07/438,268 is included herein by reference.
(ii) U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,668 {"Vail(668)"} entitled "Methods and Apparatus for Measurement of Electronic Properties of Geological Formations Through Borehole Casing"; that issued on Aug. 27, 1991; that is Ser. No. 07/435,273; that has the filing date of Oct. 30, 1989; and that is a Continuation application of Ser. No. 07/089,697. An entire copy of Ser. No. 07/435,273 is included herein by reference.
(iii) U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,440 {"Vail(440)"} entitled "Measuring Resistivity Changes From Within a First Cased Well to Monitor Fluids Injected Into Oil Bearing Geological Formations From a Second Cased Well While Passing Electrical Current Between the Two Cased Wells"; that issued on Feb. 16, 1993; that is Ser. No. 07/749,136; that has the filing date of Aug. 23, 1991; and that is a Continuation-in-Part application of Ser. No. 07/435,273. An entire copy of Ser. No. 07/749,136 is included herein by reference.
(iv) U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,590 {"Vail(590)"} entitled "Formation Resistivity Measurements from Within a Cased Well Used to Quantitatively Determine the Amount of Oil and Gas Present"; that issued on May 27, 1997; that is Ser. No. 08/214,648; that has the filing date of Mar. 17, 1994; and that is a Continuation-in-Part application of Ser. No. 08/083,615. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/214,628 is included herein by reference.
(v) U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,334 {"Vail(334)"} entitled "Methods and Apparatus to Produce Stick-Slip Motion of Logging Tool Attached to a Wireline Drawn Upward by a Continuously Rotating Wireline Drum"; that issued on Feb. 10, 1998; that is Ser. No. 08/508,781; that has the filing date of Jul. 28, 1995; that is a Continuation-in-Part application of Ser. No. 08/083,615. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/508,781 is included herein by reference.
(vi) U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,381 {"Vail (381)"} entitled "Electrical Voltages and Resistances Measured to Inspect Metallic Cased Wells and Pipelines"; that issued on Feb. 29, 2000; that is Ser. No. 08/685,796; that has the filing date of Jul. 23, 1996; that is an FWC application of Ser. No. 08/271,869 (now abandoned); and Ser. No. 08/271,869 is a Continuation-in-Part application of Ser. No. 08/083,615. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/685,796 is included herein by reference.
(vii) U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,195 {"Vail(195)"} entitled "Formation Resistivity Measurements from Within a Cased Well Used to Quantitatively Determine the Amount of Oil and Gas Present"; that issued on Dec. 5, 2000; that is Ser. No. 08/864,309; that has the filing date of May 27, 1997; that is a Continuation application of Ser. No. 08/214,648. An entire copy of Ser. No. 08/864,309 is included herein by reference.
(viii) U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,122 {"Vail (249)"} entitled "Electrical Voltages and Resistances Measured to Inspect Metallic Cased Wells and Pipelines"; that issued on Jun. 19, 2001; that is Ser. No. 09/444,531; that has the filing date of Nov. 22, 1999; that is a Continuation application of Ser. No. 08/685,796. An entire copy of Ser. No. 09/444,531 is included herein by reference.
Seven sheets of Form PTO/1449 are being filed concurrently with this application. These seven sheets are included herein by their entirety by reference. Further, each and every reference cited on those seven sheets, namely, references AA-AV; BA-BE; CA-DO; EA-EC; and FA-FC; are included herein in their entirety by reference. Therefore, included herein by reference in their entirety is each and every one of those 74 references cited in the previous sentence.
Portions of this application have been disclosed in U.S. Disclosure Document No. 228495, filed Jun. 5, 1989, an entire copy of which is included herein by reference. Other U.S. Disclosure Documents related to this application have been filed in the USPTO, and entire copies of all of those U.S. Disclosure Documents are included herein by reference (and those U.S. Disclosure Document numbers shall be provided by applicant in a later amendment to be filed by applicant).
Process for determining the resistivity (Rt) of a formation (9) surrounding a well (10) equipped with a casing (11) consisting of several casing segments (11.i, 11.s) with an overlapping part (1), and cement (3) in the overlapping part (1), in which a current is injected into the casing (11) to cause a leakage current (Ifor) into a area (8) of the formation (9) offset from the overlapping part (1), the leakage current (Ifor) in the measurement area (8) is determined and is used to deduce the measured resistivity (Rm) of the formation, a current is injected into the casing (11) to cause a current leakage (Icem) in the cement (3) of the overlapping part (1), the leakage current (Icem) in the cement (3) in the overlapping part (1) is determined, and is used to deduce the measured resistivity (Rcem) of the cement (3), the measured resistivity (Rm) of the formation (9) is corrected using a factor to take account of the measured resistivity (Rcem) of the cement (3) to obtain the resistivity (Rt) of the formation (9). Application particularly to oil exploration.
The invention relates to a method for predicting the performance of large-scale hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir floods. One embodiment of the invention includes a method for predicting performance of a patterned flooding process in a subterranean hydrocarbon-bearing formation, said formation being penetrated by a plurality of injector wells and producer wells, comprising the steps of: determining flow-based pairs of injector to producer wells [FIG. 4, item 78a] (first well pairs) using a geological model [item 76]; developing a connective pore volume distribution curve for each first well pair item [78b]; selecting at least two first well pairs (selected well pairs) that reflect narrow and wide connective pore volume distributions that correspond to high and lower oil recovery levels; developing a 3-D simulation model for each selected well pair, performing a reservoir simulation for each selected well pair for the corresponding flooding process; and generating prototype performance curves for each selected well pair. An alternate embodiment of the invention includes a method for predicting the performance of large-scale hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir floods where injection well location, production well location, a process parameter, or a well processing rate is modified.
