Advances In Geophysics & Sub-surface Description

Tuesday, March 16, 2010
London
The Geological Society

'Advances in geophysics' are a mainstay of our Forums; this time (the 3rd in our Geophysics/Seismic series) we had a focus on how such advances aid reservoir description.

Three or four interesting messages came out of the half day:

Firstly, as Matt Luheshi pointed out in his presentation “4D – the story so far”, the main purpose of 4D surveys seems to have become to help locate in-fill wells, that is, reducing the risk of drilling these ‘exploratory’ wells (and following the time-honoured notion that the best place to discover oil is inside an oil field!).

Secondly, permanently installed seismic monitoring seems like a great idea but, so far, only the Valhall, Clair and Ekofisk fields have permanent monitoring installed. Why? Martin Bett of Stingray Geophysical pointed out that the truth is that with current technologies installation of permanent ‘kit’ is very expensive, and practical folk like production engineers have concerns about both the reliability of the installed equipment and the disruption that might be caused by its installation. Perhaps fibre optics – as offered by Stingray – shines a light on a new approach?

Thirdly, Sandeep Gulati of Vialogy gave a tantalising glimpse of what may be a brand new approach to seismic data processing.

Fourthly, Kevin Hermansen of Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies gave a great answer to the question "what size field needs the sort of visualisation you are taking about?" which was "any field that has more than one person working on it!". (I paraphrase in both cases)

Agenda

9:00 Arrivals and Registrations

9:30 David Bamford - Director Finding Petroleum Welcome and Introduction Watch Video     David Bamford is 63. He is a non-executive director at Tullow Oil plc and has various roles with Parkmead Group plc, PARAS Ltd and New Eyes Exploration Ltd, and runs his own consultancy. He writes regular articles for OilVoice and ROGTEC and is a co-founder of Finding Petroleum. He retired from BP in 2003, after a 23 year career spent initially in research & technology, then the geophysics function, business unit leadership, and finally BP's global exploration programme. Finding Petroleum Finding Petroleum was established to help the oil and gas industry network, and stay up to date on the latest technological developments. It does this via hosting regular events, distributing their colour magazine - Digital Energy Journal, and with an online social network of nearly 700 members. More...

9:40 Matt Luheshi - Senior Analyst RPS Energy 4D Seismic – the story so far Watch Video     RPS Energy provides a range of technical, commercial and project management support services to the international energy industry, covering geoscience, engineering and HS&E, with offices around the world. More...

10:15 Sandeep Gulati - Vialogy QuantumRD – Increased predictability in Reservoir Characterization and Hydrocarbon Recovery Based on Novel Noise Injection Computations Watch Video     ViaLogy was founded in 1999 as a spin-off of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratories operated by the California Institute of Technology. The lynchpin of its activities was the furtherance of a unique technology, Quantum Resonance Interferometry (QRI™), originally developed to detect, enhance and characterize weak signals in high background noise and interference environments. Today, ViaLogy is focused on bringing to clients in the upstream oil and natural gas sector its analytical service offering, QuantumRD®. Another key company technology, Sensor Policy Manager™ integrates sensors in large-scale military base-security and force protection applications within the emerging Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) market. More...

10:50 Coffee, Tea and light refreshments

11:20 Martin Bett - CEO Stingray Geophysical Ltd A new light on reservoir monitoring Watch Video     Martin Bett has over 30 years’ oil industry experience working in operational and management positions for Schlumberger, Landmark, I-NET, Trade-Ranger and QinetiQ. Prior to founding Stingray Geophysical, he has established and grown businesses in Europe, USA, South America and Africa, and has a track record for closing large transactions for new and pioneering products and services. Martin has a BSc in Geophysics from Southampton University, UK, and an MBA with Distinction from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland. Stingray Geophysical Ltd Stingray Geophysical, a TGS Company, provides advanced Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) solutions to the global oil and gas industry, enabling increased production and recoverable reserves at lower through-life cost and risk through improved reservoir management strategies. By 'listening with light' using Stingray's reliable, permanently installed Fosar® fibre-optic sensing arrays, oil companies benefit from high quality, cost-effective and repeatable seismic on demand in all field scenarios. Together with its global network of trusted partners, and as a part of TGS, Stingray delivers complete, integrated seismic PRM from planning, through active and passive seismic acquisition, to processing and reservoir solutions. More...

11:55 Nick Pillar - Ikon Science Roknowledge - rock properties to synthetic seismic at your fingertips Watch Video     Ikon Science is a geoscience technology company committed to bringing innovative geoscience technology to the upstream oil and gas industry. As specialists in subsurface workflows, we are developing and delivering quantitative prediction and reservoir characterisation to customers with a fresh and flexible approach. With our industry-leading software, The RokDoc® System, and our responsive teams, we are dedicated to providing you with excellence, by combining innovation and scientific rigour on every project. Leading a journey to discover and share new technology, products and know how, we deliver results and value on time, every time. Ikon Science, founded in 2001, employs over 80 people and has offices in London, Durham, Edinburgh, Houston, Boulder, Lagos, Kuala Lumpur and Perth Western Australia. More...

12:30 Kevin Hermansen - Kongsberg Innovation in 3D visualization reveals the reservoir dynamics for increased decision support Watch Video     KONGSBERG is an international, knowledge-based group that supplies high-technology systems and solutions to customers engaged in the oil and gas industry, the merchant marine, and the defence and aerospace industries. In 2008, KONGSBERG had a turnover of NOK 11 billion and 5 243 employees in more than 25 countries. More...