Geophysical investigation of abandoned back-filled railway line: implication on adjacent buildings

A geophysical investigation was carried out on a back-filled segment of an abandoned railway route at Okebadan Estate, Ibadan using electrical resistivity imaging. The study is aimed at depicting the cause(s) of settlement that led to building foundation failure. Five profile lines were established during the study and the apparent resistivity values obtained from the traverse were plotted against the mid-point of electrode separation using least-squares inversion algorithm. Pockets of low resistivity region were obtained from the inverted sections with resistivity values ranging from 77 Ω-m to ˂400 Ω-m. The suspected back-filled earth materials were suspected to be clay and clayey sand. Results indicated that materials used in back filling the abandoned rail route were not well compacted. Consequently, the structural failure of buildings along this abandoned route was attributed to differential settlements of clays and clayey sands on which they were erected.Keywords: Backfill, Foundation, Resistivity, Settlemen

Seismic interpretation and petrophysical evaluation of SH field, Niger Delta

Abstract Three out of the 14 hydrocarbon-bearing sands (A, B and I) in the ‘SH’ field onshore Niger Delta which contain bulk of the hydrocarbon reserves in the field were considered as development candidates. Seismic interpretation and petrophysical evaluation of logs of 13 wells were integrated with the aim of verifying and ascertaining the hydrocarbon reserves prior to field development which involves enormous financial commitment. Results show that the field is structurally controlled by sets of northwest–southeast-trending synthetic faults which dip southwest. Hydrocarbon traps at the three sand levels are rollover anticlinal closures that are generally sealed by a major listric fault that demarcated the field into northwest and southeast blocks. The southern fault block is hydrocarbon bearing; wells drilled in the field targeted these closures and encountered a number of stacked hydrocarbon-bearing sand levels. Reservoir-A developed a hanging-wall rollover anticlinal structure sealed by a major listric fault forming a trap with oil–water contact (OWC) of 1222 m TVDSS. Reservoir-B also shows similar structure as reservoir-A, but it is partitioned into two hydrocarbon compartments by a sealing fault; these two compartments have different OWCs. Reservoir-I exhibits similar structure to reservoir-A. The evaluation of the petrophysical characteristics revealed that the reservoirs are of good quality with average net to gross, porosities, water saturation and hydrocarbon saturation ranging from 0.774 to 0.980, 0.220–0.339, 0.133–0.367 and 0.633–0.867, respectively. Variation in the petrophysical parameters and the uncertainty in the reservoir structure of the three reservoirs were considered in calculating range of values of gross rock volume and in-place volume. The study shows oil-in-place volume in the range of 243.83–357.90 MMstb in reservoir-I, whereas reservoir-A contains 148.98–241.14 MMstb, reservoir-B1 31.31–50.36 MMstb and reservoir-B2 67.79–108.98 MMstb of oil. Conclusively, this study has further confirmed the high productivity and commercial viability of the wells within the field of study to be able to adequately compensate for the cost of development

A Resistivity Survey of Phosphate Nodules in Oshoshun, Southwestern Nigeria

This geophysical study was carried out to determine the occurrence of phosphate nodules in the Oshoshun Formation of the Dahomey Basin, Southwestern Nigeria. The electrical resistivity method, comprising 1D vertical electrical sounding (VES; using Schlumberger array) and 2D geoelectrical imaging (using Wenner array), was used to determine the nature and depth of occurrence of the phosphate nodules. Six profile lines were established within the study area, and inverted sections were generated from the apparent resistivity data using DIPRO inversion algorithm. Five VES points were also acquired in the study area, and Win- Resist programme was used to process and interpret the field resistivity data. Four pits were dug along the profiles to verify the interpreted results. The results obtained by both techniques reveal similar geoelectric units: the top soil, clay, clayey sand and clay at different depths. These layers host pockets of phosphate nodules (78-≥651 Ωm) with varying thicknesses. The strong correlation between the lithology profiles obtained from the pits and the interpreted results of the inverted apparent resistivity sections demonstrates the efficacy of the electrical resistivity method in characterising phosphate occurrence within the formation

Geostatistical modeling of porosity data in ‘oba’ field, onshore Niger Delta

A geostatistical approach was used to model porosity of OBA field in onshore area of Niger Delta using simulation technique. The objective is to understand the spatial distribution of porosity and characterize the degree of heterogeneity of underlying formation. Porosity data from twenty-two wells were loaded into SGeMS software. Univariate statistical analysis, experimental semivariogram and Sequential Gaussian Simulation (SGS) were applied on the data. The data was close to normal approximation of Gaussian based of the results of univariate statistics. However, to construct and model horizontal and vertical semivariograms, the data was log-normalized to reduce the coefficient of variation and to get good fit of the model. Parametric semivariogram model shows the range of 72–6480 m, nugget effect of 0.006 and sills of 0.0095, 0.0099 and 0.0111. Six realizations were generated using SGS algorithm and the results suggest that any one of the realizations can independently represents the true picture of the subsurface geology within the study area. Ranking of realizations shows realization 6 as the best and realization 2 as the lowest. This model could be used as an initial condition for simulation of flow