As a well-established and essential means of logging for companies based in the UK and worldwide, slimhole logging is a technique which has been praised throughout the years as a highly effective method of which to survey the properties of the ground.
There are many reasons of which the ground would need to be surveyed – geological purpose, construction purpose, and so on, but the oil and gas industry utilise geologging in order to save time, ensure safety, as well as become more efficient.
The utilisation of geologging techniques such as slimhole logging and the importance of them cannot be understated for the oil and gas industry, and as such, it is used every day in both marine and land investigations.
In the oil and gas industry in particular, slimhole logging has become quite the staple for measuring the rock and fluids in any formation. The inception of geologging goes back quite a long way in modern history.
The process in itself was conceived on September 5th, 1927 thank to the ingenuity of two brothers called Marcel and Conrad Schlumberger, in France, who both worked for the Pechelbronn Oil Company.
Originally, the process was initially coined as an ‘electric survey’ by the pair. Years passed before well-logging became standard in the USA which was the start of slimhole logging conceived shortly afterward. Nowadays, slimhole logging is the standard for all oil and gas prospects both in the west and the east, for the fact that the information it can gather is absolutely unrivalled.
But how exactly does well logging work?
The application for slimline logging tools are fairly simple due to the process. The process involves the tools being lowered into a ‘slim’ hole in which testing can commence.
Cylindrical in shape, yet also with a small diameter, this makes it the line ideal for tight quarters. There are three types of logging tools most commonly used in the oil and gas industry, according to the UK Industrial Blogger.
Firstly, the tool is for spontaneous potential (meaning it could produce oil or not). The voltage differs on the surface and also underground to help understand the yield of any substance below.
With the implementation of further instruments, the tester can also determine the natural radiation of the substance to understand its temperature and pressure, which is then compared to a library of known properties of substances in order to determine origin.
Another less conventional method of slimline borehole logging is similar to a probe in that it is lowered into the earth, before producing a small charge. This charge interacts with the substance of what is beneath the ground, and returns back the energy. This energy, as it returns, shows differing characteristics which can and do include magnetic resonance as well as electrical properties, inductive properties, as well as acoustic ones amongst others.
Possibly the most rewarding process for any examiner is the extraction in itself. The mechanical aspect retrieves samples of the potentially rich rock before being brought back to the surface for inspection.
Thanks to all of this, slimhole logging is a very advantageous for any excavators to undertake. It allows for a swift result under examination, determining whether it’s viable to manage the potential oil and for its harvest in the long-run.
