Asia-Pacific Formation Evaluation Services

At Asia-Pacific Formation Evaluation Services we specialise in formation evaluation with an APAC focus.

Formation evaluation integrates geology, geophysics, petrophysics, and engineering data and concepts to provide consistent and coherent interpretations of the subsurface. Not only does a formation evaluation approach provide more robust interpretations, it can reduce overall evaluation costs by leveraging all available data. Although formation evaluation grew out of the oil & gas industry, the overall concepts and workflows are applicable in many different industries, and we are experienced in applying these methods in the oil & gas, geothermal, groundwater, and mining industries.

Operations and acquisition support

Our aim is to provide you with the most robust interpretation of your well at the most economical price. We will work with you to understand your specific challenges and define an appropriate formation evaluation program that may include mud logging and cuttings analysis, coring and routine and special core analysis, LWD and wireline logging, and well testing as required. We will support your technical and commercial staff to qualify and select appropriate vendors. We will supervise and provide QAQC for wellsite and laboratory data acquisition of all types. As data acquisition progresses we will continuously update our evaluation, providing a living document that reflects the best possible knowledge of your well based on the available information. At the end of the evaluation process, our integrated answer products will provide you with a complete picture of your reservoirs.

For more information about or operations and acquisition support services and capabilities, please contact us at [email protected].

Asset evaluations and field studies

We excel at integrated formation evaluation studies. We are experienced at integrating mud log and cuttings data, routine and special core analysis, LWD and wireline log data, and well test data to provide a consistent and coherent interpretation of your reservoirs. We routinely work with data from 1950’s to 2010’s vintage, and are experts at using limited modern log data, either open hole or cased hole, and core analysis data to build and calibrate robust interpretation models that can be applied to large data sets of varying vendor and vintage. We will work with your geologists and reservoir engineers to ensure that there is clear communication of objectives, workflow, and results, ensuring that our output is ready to integrate directly into your reservoir modelling and simulation activities.

For more information about our studies capabilities, please contact us at [email protected].

Training and mentoring

We have extensive experience in developing and delivering training courses in all aspects of formation evaluation. We can provide one-on-one mentoring and competency assessment, as well as group and web-based training. We offer both in-house and public training courses, and can deliver the courses directly or through one of our industry partners. Our training courses provide an optimum balance of theory and practice, and can be tailored to the software platforms that you use. As well as our portfolio of courses, we can develop bespoke courses to address your specific requirements.

For more information about our training and mentoring services, please contact us at [email protected].

Workflow and software development

We are experienced with workflow and software development on formation evaluation and petrophysics platforms such as Techlog, GeoFrame, Geolog, and IP. We provide formation evaluation software “plug-ins” across multiple platforms based on a common interpretation algorithm library. This ensures consistency between results obtained on different platforms while at the same time we leverage the strengths of each individual platform in our implementation.

For more information about our software, please contact us at [email protected].

Our training and software offerings are organised around four main themes:

Measurements

Everything we do in formation evaluation is based on measurements we make, either downhole or at the surface on rock or fluid samples. As measurements become more complicated, understanding how they are made becomes more important to getting the most value out of them. We have particular experience with electromagnetic measurements, advanced nuclear measurements, and nuclear magnetic resonance. We are also experienced with routine and special core analysis measurements, as well as advanced measurements for laboratory characterisation of porous media. We have advanced processing and interpretation software to get the most value out of these measurements, and can provide focussed training on these different measurements.

Methods

Specific methodologies or workflows provide the backbone of formation evaluation. We are expert in quick-look log analysis techniques, ancient log analysis, rock typing, saturation-height functions, and cased-hole evaluation, and have training and software offerings focussed on each of these workflows.

Environments

Every geological environment presents its own specific challenges, and requires its own specific workflows and interpretation methods. We have solutions for shaly sands, thinly bedded formations, carbonates, igneous and metamorphic basement reservoirs, volcanics, shale gas and liquids, and coal seam gas, and can offer software and training to address the complexities of each of these environments.

Industries

Although formation evaluation as an approach to integrated evaluation of subsurface borehole data grew out of the oil & gas industry, the methods and concepts are applicable in multiple industrial sectors. We are experienced at applying these methods in the oil & gas, geothermal, groundwater, and mining industries, and can deliver customised training and software focussed on each of these sectors.

Do you have a particular reservoir challenge? We have considerable experience developing innovative and, more importantly, successful methods for evaluating challenging reservoirs. We will meet with you, review your available data, and provide detailed recommendations and scope of work to address the challenge, whether this involves new data acquisition or new interpretation. If you choose to use us for subsequent work, we will offset the cost of this initial consultation phase in our final invoice.

Tom Neville – Principal Consultant

Tom Neville is an expert on all aspects of formation evaluation, linking geology, petrophysics, and reservoir engineering. He has experience in shaly sands, carbonates, and unconventional reservoirs from around the World, and has worked in operations and acquisition support, asset evaluations and field studies, logging tool and interpretation workflow development, and pore-scale petrophysical research.

Tom is currently Principal Consultant at Asia-Pacific Formation Evaluation Services and Technical Advisor to Qteq. After completing a BSc degree in Geology at the University of Queensland, Australia in 1989, Tom worked as an exploration and development geologist for several Australian E&P companies before joining Schlumberger as a petrophysicist in 1996. In the following twenty years Tom held a variety of technical and management positions in operations, engineering, and research with Schlumberger, including Research Director for Reservoir Geosciences at Schlumberger-Doll Research, Formation Evaluation Software Discipline Manager at Schlumberger’s Beijing Geoscience Centre, and Asia/Australasia Petrophysics Advisor for Schlumberger Wireline.

Tom is co-author on over twenty peer-reviewed technical papers, conference presentations, and other publications, and won the Best Paper Award at the 2007 SPWLA Annual Symposium. Tom is also co-inventor on eleven US patents.

Tom is a member of AAPG, SEG, SPE, and SPWLA. He has served on the SPWLA International Board of Directors for six years and has been a member of the SPWLA Technology Committee for the past five years, and a Technical Reviewer for SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering for the past seven years. He is a highly-rated instructor with over fifteen years experience providing training on all aspects of formation evaluation, including Schlumberger’s internal Reservoir Petrophysics course, which he introduced in 2003 and led for over ten years.

For more information about Tom, and to connect with him, view his LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tneville/.