Measurement of formation conductivity through-casing using a TEM method

Abstract Due to the existence of the metal casing in production wells, it is difficult for a conventional well-logging method to achieve satisfactory results. To study the possibility of measuring the formation conductivity through casing by using a transient electromagnetic (TEM) method, characteristics of the response signals received at different source-receiver spacing are investigated. Based on the advantages of the response signals at long spacing in the separation of the direct and indirect coupled signals, the corresponding differential response signals calculated with different formation conductivities are studied further. Results show that: (1) the differential signals are three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the original response signals; (2) there is a maximum and a minimum in the differential signal; (3) with the increase of the spacing, the profile of differential signal hardly changes, but moves backward on the timeline and the amplitude decreases slowly, which is in sharp contrast to the original response signals and (4) the differential signal is proportional to the difference of corresponding formation conductivities and the maximum and minimum values in the response difference are the most sensitive. The research reveals the characteristics of TEM responses in cased-hole and the distribution of formation conductivity information, which is predicted to provide a new perspective for the design of long-spacing through-casing in the TEM conductivity logging tool and the signal processing method.