A comprehensive study of a single well for INTEVEP and Meneven in the Faja Petrolifera del Orinoco--an extensive (570 × 140 km, 350 × 90 mi) east-west trending heavying oil belt located immediately north of the Orinoco River, eastern Venezuela--resulted in an interpretation of an invasion profile dependent on depositional environments. The data base was derived from: (1) 400 ft (121 m) of whole core (67% recovery) and 124 sidewall cores taken from the 1,500-1,900 ft (457-579 m) interval of the upper Tertiary Oficina Formation, which, in this area, overlies the Precambrian metamorphosed igneous basement. (2) A logging suite of 22 conventional, experimental, and prototype wireline logs.

In this area, the Oficina Formation is a complex series of stacked, heavy oil-saturated, sand-dominant, fluvially-transported, unconsolidated sediments overlain by lignite- and mud-dominant backswamp and estuarine sediments. Bedding, mineralogy, lithology, and paleontology define fluvial-channel fills, channel-lag deposits, crevasse splays, overbank levees, swamps, estuarine lagoons, and estuarine-channel fills in a delta-plain environment.

Reservoir geometry and facies analyses suggest that several short, wide, deep-channeled, meandering rivers flowed generally northward across a tropical-subtropical plain of low relief carrying the bulk of the sediment in bedload traction (channel fills) and a smaller fraction in density suspension (crevasse splays).

A unique logging suite permitted the measurement of invasion in this heavy-oil environment. The invasion of the mud filtrate was measured at varying depths of investigation using, from shallowest to deepest depths: (1) gamma ray spectrometry log, (2) microspherically focused log, (3) nuclear magnetism free fluid index, and (4) deep Laterolog.

In addition, water trapped in the fine-grained sands was characterized by comparing the porosity from the electromagnetic propagation log to the free fluid index from the nuclear magnetism log. Identification of the depositional facies coupled with these log responses produced an innovative interpretation of the invasion profile. From an oil-bearing gross interval of 262 ft (80 m) 9 sand units were defined according to their primary and secondary (steam processing) production capability.

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