Gas porosity

Gas porosity is the fraction of a rock or sediment filled with a gas.

Determining the true porosity of a gas filled formation has always been a problem in the oil industry. While natural gas is a hydrocarbon, similar to oil, the physical properties of the fluids are very different, making it very hard to correctly quantify the total amount of gas in a formation. Well logging interpretation of the amount of hydrocarbon in the pore space of a formation, relies on the fluid being oil. Gas is light compared to oil causing density logging (gamma ray emitting sensors) based measurements to produce anomalous signals. Similarly, measurements that rely on detecting hydrogen (neutron emitting sensors) can miss detecting or correctly interpreting the presence of gas because of the lower hydrogen concentration in gas, compared to oil.