K-Mean Clustering Analysis and Logistic Boosting Regression for Rock Facies Characterization and Classification in Zubair Reservoir in Luhais Oil Field, Southern Iraq

Abstract

Identifying rock facies from petrophysical logs is a crucial step in the evaluation and characterization of hydrocarbon reservoirs. The rock facies can be obtained either from core analysis (lithofacies) or from well logging data (electrofacies). In this research, two advanced machine learning approaches were adopted for electrofacies identification and for lithofacies classification, both given the well-logging interpretations from a well in the upper shale member in Luhais Oil Field, southern Iraq. Specifically, the K-mean partitioning analysis and Logistic Boosting (Logit Boost) were conducted for electrofacies characterization and lithofacies classification, respectively. The dataset includes the routine core analysis of core porosity, core permeability, and measured discrete lithofacies along with the well-logging interpretations include (shale volume, water saturation and effective porosity) given the entire reservoir interval. The K-Mean clustering technique demonstrated good matching between the vertical sequence of identified electrofacies and the observed lithofacies from core description as attained 89.92% total correct percent from the confusion matrix table. The Logit Boost showed excellent matching between the recognized lithofacies from the core description and the predicted lithofacies through attained 98.26% total correct classification rate index from the confusion matrix table. The high accuracy of the Logit Boost algorithm comes from taking into account the non-linearity between the lithofacies and petrophysical properties in the classification process. The high degree of lithofacies classification by Logit Boost in this research can be considered in a similar procedure at all sandstone reservoirs to improve the reservoir characterization. The complete facies identification and classification were implemented with the programming language R, the powerful open-source statistical computing language.