Technical difficulties of logging while drilling in carbonate reservoirs and the countermeasures: A case study from the Sichuan Basin

In the Sichuan Basin, carbonate reservoirs are characterized by deep burial depth and strong heterogeneity, so it is difficult to conduct structure steering, pore space reservoir tracking and trajectory control in the process of geosteering logging while drilling. In this paper, a series of corresponding techniques for structure, reservoir and formation tracking were proposed after analysis was conducted on multiple series of carbonate strata in terms of their geologic and logging response characteristics. And investigation was performed on the adaptabilities of the following logging technologies to geosteering while drilling, including gamma ray imaging while drilling, resistivity imaging while drilling, density imaging while drilling, gamma ray logging while drilling, resistivity logging while drilling, neutron logging while drilling and density logging while drilling. After while drilling information was thoroughly analyzed, the logging suites for four common types of complicated reservoirs (thin layered reservoirs, thick massive reservoirs, denuded karst reservoirs and shale gas reservoirs) were optimized, and five logging combinations suitable for different formations and reservoirs were proposed, including gamma ray logging + porosity + resistivity imaging, gamma ray logging + resistivity imaging, gamma ray logging + porosity + resistivity logging, gamma ray imaging + resistivity logging, and gamma ray logging. Field application indicates that it is of great reference and application value to use this method for the first time to summarize logging while drilling combinations for different types of carbonate reservoirs.