Short Term Production Well: Estimation of the Shut-in Temperature

Geophysical well logging has become a standard operation in petroleum exploration. Knowledge of the well temperature as a function of time, is very important to estimate the resistivity of the formation water and the thermal stresses arising due to the difference between the wellbore temperature, and the undisturbed formation temperature. A lengthy period of time, up to one year or more, is often required to drill a deep well. In this paper we will consider a case when the deep wellbore is utilized as a production or an injection well. The drilling and production greatly alters the temperature of the reservoir immediately surrounding the well. When a production (or injection) well is shut-in, to conduct a geophysical log, the wellbore temperature differs from the undisturbed formation temperature. The only objective of this paper is to suggest a new method of estimation the shut-in temperature.