LOGGING IN CANADA

Well logging began early in the history of Canada when water well drillers recorded notes on
the clay, sand, and gravel they penetrated. This made it easier to find water for the next farm.
Formal, but hand written, logs of all water wells drilled in Canada are required by government
regulation.

Although he may not have been the first to do so, Dr. George Dawson of the Geological Survey
of Canada, collected information on the wells drilled by the Canadian Pacific Railway as they
moved West in the early 1880's. He presented a paper to the Royal Society of Canada in May,
1886, called "On Certain Borings in Manitoba and the Northwest Territory". The paper
contained detailed sample descriptions of the wells - possibly the first "well logs" in Western
Canada. Some these wells flowed gas; the first gas wells in Canada were at Langevin Siding,
near Medicine Hat.

Schlumberger ran surface resistivity surveys in many parts of Canada between 1926 and 1928
for mines, dams, and even hydrocarbons in Turner Valley, But the history of wireline well
logging in Canada doesn't begin until 1937, a mere 10 years after the very first electric log was
run in the Pechelbronn oilfield in France on September 5, 1927.

A quote from the official Schlumberger history tells the story: “In another part of the country, a
young engineer named Bill Gillingham was attempting to raise some interest in electric logging
in the Bradford, Pennsylvania area. The response was not immediately tremendous. A trainee
under Gillingham, R.R. Rieke, was told to head west by northwest, to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan,
embarking on one of the strangest Schlumberger journeys you’ve heard of.”
One of the first well logs in Western Canada from Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada for the Year 1886 Volume IV. Glenbow Archives

"You see, they ended up in Canada, not looking for oil, but for gold. The preliminary work had
been conducted by Andre Allegret and, as a result of surface exploration, a contract had been
let. “When we arrived,” Rieke said, “trouble was afoot. They had found gold alright, but not
where the survey had said. When they drilled there - nothing. We left rather quickly.”
Schlumberger didn't return to log in Canada until 1946.
 Two years, later, “electric logs”
were introduced to the Canadian
oil patch in 1939 by the forerunner
of today’s Halliburton Services
Ltd.

Early Halliburton Logging

Truck c. 1946

The first Halliburton unit was

operated out of Black Diamond,
Alberta by Jack Pettinger, who
remained active until 1979. Jack
and another pioneer, Stan Nelner
recalled that trips of hundreds of miles to such far-flung wildcat sites as Kamsack,
Saskatchewan, Pouce Coupe, B.C. and Lloydminster were not uncommon.During the war
years, equipment was also stationed at Norman Wells on the Canol Project and at Vermilion,
Alberta.

The logger of those days had to be versatile because he was often

called upon to operate cementing and acidizing equipment, or run
drill-stem tests, in addition to the standard electrical survey (ES).
With increased demands after the Leduc discovery in 1947, more
modern survey equipment was added. Also, the “FM” (frequency
modulated) system of transmitting sub-surface data via a single
conductor cable was adopted by Halliburton. This technique
remained a unique feature of the Halliburton-Welex wireline
equipment for many years.

Early Halliburton ES log 11 Nov 1942, Imperial

Radville #1, Saskatchewan, TD 5985 feet

The approximate dates of first availability of modern logging

methods, as recalled by Gerry Obermeyer, a manager of operations for Halliburton, were
Focused Resistivity 1952, Radioactive 1954, Induction 1954, and Acoustic 1958. A shift in the
development of Canadian operations also occurred in 1957 when the parent company
purchased WELEX Incorporated. A combined WELEX-Halliburton Electrical Well Section
operated in Canada as a separate company for some time. The perforating service, which had
also been introduced to Canada by Halliburton in 1940, was expanded. Later, that group was
absorbed as an operating
division of Halliburton Services
Ltd.

Schlumberger arrived
permanently in Canada in 1946
by opening a location at
Lloydminster, manned by such
notables as Ed Burge, Hugh
Gough, and Arne Thorson.
Truck numbers were in the 200
series.

Early Schlumberger Truck c.

1949

One of the older units in Canada about that time required that the crew jack up the rear end and
install a chain from the rear axle to the winch drive. Services offered were ES, six-shot sidewall
core guns and bullet perforating.
By 1949, there were offices in Calgary and Edmonton, and Neil Collins was at the helm in
booming Redwater. Barry McVicar had joined the forces as well. By 1951, tools available were
ES, gamma ray, dipmeter, directional, cores, microlog, laterolog, limestone device,
temperature, perforating and caliper. The year 1951 also saw the introduction of revolutionary
armoured steel cable to replace the 1 inch diameter fabric-covered line known as the “ragline”.

A job report of that year mentions a trip to a

well near Fort Vermillion that commenced
the 26th of April and ended June 29th, with
most of the intervening time spent
attempting to get to the well by building
bridges and barges, waiting for ferries, and
sinking into mud.

The ES logging tool and crew at Winter

Harbour

Ten years later (1961) saw the first logs to be run in Canada’s Arctic Islands at Winter Harbour
on Melville Island. Since that epic event, operations have taken place in all the frontier areas
from the misty Queen Charlottes to Hudson’s Bay, the High Arctic Islands, the East Coast, and
the Beaufort Sea.

Lane-Wells established their first office in Edmonton on the Cooking Lake Trail in 1947,
offering the usual GR log, perforating services, and later neutron and ES logs. They quickly
opened stations in Stettler, Virden, Swift Current, Estevan, Drayton Valley, Red Deer, Swan
Hills, and Fort St. John, the hot spots of the time. The early managers were Bill Ludwig, Lee
Lobdell and Glenn Robinson.

Perforating Guns of Canada Limited opened their first office in Edmonton on Calgary Trail in
1949. Walt Minor and Bill McKay were the people in charge. In the early 1950’s radiation
logging for cased and open hole was one of the primary services available, out of the usual
towns such as Lloydminster, Kindersley, Stettler, Estevan, and Drayton Valley. In 1965, the
name was changed to Pan Geo Atlas Canada Limited and open-hole logging services were
introduced in the following year.

In July of 1968, PGAC and Lane-Wells merged into one larger operation under the auspices of
Dresser Atlas Inc. The combined companies offered a full line of services from various
Canadian locations thereafter. Still later, Baker Hughes took over the entire Dresser complex,
with the logging division becoming Baker-Atlas.

McCullough Wireline Services were around in the early 50s and offered services mainly in the
cased-hole field. Mart Kernahan, one of the early managers, became better known for his
contribution to the early days of computed log analysis at Computrex Computer Services
Limited in the early 60s. Mart recognized the potential of the scintillometer, developed at the
University of Manitoba, and offered it in place of the less efficient Geiger-Muller GR counter;
now nearly all GR logs are run with scintillation counters.

The late 50s and most of the 1960s saw a number of independent wireline operators appear on
the scene. This trend continued, with one of the notable successes being the acquisition of an
interest in Wireline Electronics (1976) Limited by Perfco Services Limited in 1976. Later in the
year, the management of Perfco and Wireline joined with Gearhart-Owen Inc. of Fort Worth,
Texas, to offer the Gearhart direct digital logging system in Canada for open-hole logging
under the name of Computalog Services Limited.

Perfco, Wireline and Computalog operated somewhat independently until 1979 when they were
amalgamated to form Computalog-Gearhart Limited. A number of further corporate maneuvers
saw Gearhart go to Halliburton, Computalog go independent, finally becoming part of Precision
Drilling and renamed Precision Wireline in 2003, followed by another acquisition to become
part of the Weatherford group of services in 2005.

Precision had acquired Reeves Wireline at the same time as Computalog; Reeves was
previously known as BPB Wireline, originally the well logging arm of British Plaster Board, one
of the largest gypsum mining companies in the world. BPB arrive in Canada in the early 1980's.

While the logging tools got better and more expensive, and the number of services grew, the
interpretation of well logs remained at a relatively primitive state until 1951 when the first
technical paper directly relating to interpretation of logs in Canada was published in The
Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin in September of the year. The title of the paper was
"Application of Electrical Logging in Canada" by M. P. Tixier and R. L. Forsythe. It was
presented at the Annual General Meeting of CIM in Quebec City in April 1951. The paper dealt
with the Leduc-Woodbend-Redwater discoveries and long-range correlations between the
Nisku pools.

Long distance correlation from Leduc (left) to Redwater (right) in Alberta, a distance of 50 miles
(Tixier 1951)

By the early 1960's, the induction log supplanted the ES

and the sonic log was in use as a porosity indicating log.
Micrologs and laterologs were still common. Log
analysis became more quantitative, but this was 1960 BC
(Before Calculators) so we used charts and nomographs
to perform the math. A few brave engineers used a slide
rule to solve for water saturation from the Archie
equation. An analysis was required on the main target
zone, and was attached to the field print of the logs, but
they were stripped off before the final prints were
delivered to the client. Maybe there was a quality control issue?

Wellsite Log Interpretation circa 1962

The Canadian Well Logging Society was formed in 1954 after a group of
people in the major oil companies and service companies in Canada
perceived the need for the exchange of ideas and technical information.
This was the first technical society in the world to exclusively promote the
science of petrophysics.

Pioneers of the CWLS were Al Brown, Ed Burge, Nick Ediger, Barry

McVicar and Gerry Shaw. Barry provided the beer and Gerry the
sandwiches at the organizational meeting in the 400 Club card room. At least we know what
their priorities were.

Other important names involved in the early years of the CWLS were A.G.T. Weaver, A.A.
Perebinossof, Leo Vladicka, Ted Connolly, Trev Cutmore, Don Tough, Bob Labelle, Percy Cole,
Doug Morrison, and Mart Kernahan. Some important names may have been left from this list,
and I hope that response from readers will generate a more complete history of the early years
of the society. The society was even brave enough to open a chapter in Regina, which was
active between 1957 and 1961. Don Tough was one of the prime movers in this venture.

Although lunch and evening meetings were held for a number of years, there is no formal
printed record of the topics or papers presented until 1968 with the appearance of CWLS
Journal, Volume 1 and almost simultaneously the Transactions of the 2nd Formation
Evaluation Symposium. Symposia had been held roughly every second year, and are now held
jointly with the CSEG and CSPG. The Journal ceased publication briefly with Volume 10 in 1977
but was revitalized in 1982 by E. R. Crain, and it continued regularly until it was replaced by the
CWLS InSite magazine in 2002.

An important function of the Society is the maintenance of the Water Resistivity Catalogue of
Canada, with the most recent revision occurring in 2003.

The Society membership has grown from the initial complement of about 12 to something
approaching 500 members. In addition, approximately 80 corporate members assist in
financing the operations of the Society. Although this history is concerned mainly with well
logging in Canada, it is important to note that the CWLS has a large list of members and
officers from other disciplines related to formation evaluation, such as drill-stem testing,
hydrocarbon logging, core analysis, and geological, geophysical, and reservoir engineering
specialties.

The CWLS maintains direct liaison with the Society of Professional Well Log Analysts in the
United States and with The Petroleum Society of CIM in Canada. These close relationships help
to maintain the cross fertilization of ideas so necessary in a multidisciplinary function such as
the petrophysical evaluation of well logs.