Making Geophysics Relevant to Reservoir Engineers Reservoir imaging technology offers advanced estimation of subsurface properties.

By Dave Ridyard, ION Geophysical interest in scientific post mortems of the last well. They need rapid information that can improve the or the last 30 years, 3-D seismic has been the effectiveness of the next well. ION seeks to address Fgoose laying golden eggs for the E&P industry. this challenge by using an integrated approach that As fracking technology has revolutionized the combines proprietary presurvey planning and opti - onshore business over the last 10 years, the realiza - mization technology with infield instrumentation and tion that geophysics only has played a support role in quality control that enables delivery of fast-track 3-D the development of unconventional resources has at seismic volumes days after the completion of acquisi - times been a bitter pill for geophysicists to swallow. tion. These volumes can be used to optimize well It shouldn’t be so. A supporting role is often as landing and avoid drilling hazards. essential as a lead part. (Jack Nicholson, John ION’s ResSCAN technology can now go far Gielgud and Robert De Niro all seem quite happy beyond the fast-track volume. Advanced processing with their Oscars for best supporting actor.) and inversion technology—using multicomponent It has taken some time for geophysics to adapt to data in areas where they add value—enables estima - the needs of reservoir engineers operating in the tion of key subsurface properties such as density, world of unconventionals. The first challenge is simply brittleness, total oil content and water saturation. In unconventional surveys, many factors conspire to determine the level of timing. In traditional exploration, each well is planned AZIM wide-azimuthal anisotropy technology is now production for a well (indicated by the red circles). In this image, the and reviewed over a period of many months or even routinely and successfully used to identify primary impact of primary fracture orientation (green vectors) and the degree of years. In the U.S. unconventional business, drilling is a orthorhombicity (white equals high, black equals low) are shown. (Image production line, and reservoir engineers have little See ENGINEER continued on page 21 >> courtesy of ION Geophysical) Seismic Source for the Marine Environment The world’s first bandwidth-controlled airgun can provide key low-frequency components while reducing potential impact of seismic acquisition operations on marine life.

Contributed by Bolt Technology Corp.

ased on principles established through mod - Beling work performed by WesternGeco, Bolt has engineered a new type of airgun designed to reduce the potential impact of seis - mic acquisition operations on marine life while also delivering optimal bandwidth for subsurface imaging. The eSource is designed to provide the low-frequency components critical to seismic exploration while reducing the high frequencies believed to have the most potential for causing disturbance to marine life.

The eSource airgun can deliver optimal bandwidth for subsurface imaging while reducing the frequencies believed to cause the most disturbance to marine life. (Image courtesy of Bolt Technology Corp.)

Statutory marine mammal mitigation mea - sures have been part of licensing agreements since 1998, and many areas of the world such as Australia, Brazil, California, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, New Zealand, Sakhalin and the U.K. now have strict regulations. Key elements of

See AIRGUN continued on page 20 >>

E&P DAILY NEWS | OCT. 28, 2014 | TUESDAY 19 >> FORUM continued from page 1 “Geophysicists today are in the position of being able to answer the bit questions,” Gilmer said, “if we • Mitigated dependence on foreign debt financing; can take the geophysical talk and translate it. • Restored manufacturing competitiveness; Analytics is bringing us the ability to make leaps in • Transformed petrochemical feedstock avail - technological advancement.” ability; and • Revised petroleum pricing. Beyond oil and gas In addition, he listed the technical disruptions that Moving to disruptive technology outside the oil and were generated by the unconventional opportunities: gas industry, Mui described the advances occurring • Drilling rig design—more productive; in the development of driverless cars. • Improved proppants—lighter and stronger; “Massive acceleration of that technology is hap - • Multistage fracking—created the potential for a pening” he said, “and it is among the disruptive multibillion-barrel a year production in the U.S.; technologies happening outside your industry.” • Development of microseismic—finding the Mui noted that 90% of automobile accidents are right solution for the specific rock; and caused by human error, causing 32,999 deaths a year • Advanced geosteering—increasing the ability in the U.S. and 1.2 million deaths a year globally. to stay in the pay zone. “The economic damage is high,” he said, “cost - “I think this is a fantastic event,” Petrie said. ing $277 billion dollars a year in economic cost. SEG President Don W. Steeples addressed conference delegates at the However, he noted, it will have important geopo - If you can take humans out of the loop, what are Opening Session on Monday morning. litical effects. He outlined scenarios in which Iran, the benefits?” Russia, China and India can form alliances that Mui showed a video of a Google driverless car being Two things that most people hate about their cars exclude Europe and the U.S., creating a power “driven” by a man who was legally blind. The man is cost and parking, Mui said. structure beyond the influence of Western powers. simply sat in the driver’s seat without touching any “What if I could give you door-to-door limo ser - “Finally,” he said, “As petroleum prices move either controls while the car drove to the cleaners and parked. vice at half the cost?” Mui said. “I’ll just take away to the upside or the downside, they are typically pow - When the driver returned, it drove him back home. the driver.” erfully self-correcting, and this is even more so in the “We are now in an arms race to develop this tech - The SEG Annual Convention continues through case because of what’s now upon us. It’s clear to me nology,” Mui said. “Big players have come from Friday with a technical program, special sessions, that the transformation we’ve been experiencing is around the world as they realized that it could workshops, continuing education courses and going to be with us on an ongoing basis very likely for become commercial.” social events. n another two, three or four decades.”

Big data Innovative technology has brought with it chal - lenges, including the need to deal with big data and make it as useful as possible, according to Gilmer. “Digital seismology is the granddaddy of big data analytics,” he said. “You have to do a lot of work to get something out of the data.” Every kind of data is structured in some way, Gilmer noted, “the question is how to make the structure useful.” Gilmer cited Google as an example of massive data collection, gathering 2 GB of information per second. New hard hats are capable of cap - turing data from onsite instruments just by the wearer looking at the readout, he said.

>> ENGINEER continued from page 19 and secondary fracture orientation. Discrete fracture network (DFN) modeling can then be used to predict the performance of various well orientations and completion strategies. On a recent project, DFN modeling indicated that a 10-degree change in the orientation of a well could generate 30% more stimulated volume and expected oil recovery. Microseismic has been one of the success sto - ries of geophysics in the unconventional envi - ronment, but even there the initial excitement of seeing “dots in a box” has yet to drive the broad level of adoption hoped for by many in the industry. Part of the problem is that a micro - seismic event tells the reservoir engineer that something happened to a fracture at a particular location, but the real issue is what happened. As with many challenges in geophysics to deter - mine the answer, a better signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), better geometry and some smart algo - rithms are needed. ION seeks to addresses the S/N issue with the introduction of the ultra - quiet SM-64 sensor and with the use of shallow vertical buried arrays. The geometry question has been addressed by combining buried array data with surface seismic data, and smart algo - rithms are now able to discriminate between “fracture opening” and “fracture closing” events. ION’s collaboration with the reservoir engi - neering experts at Sierra Hamilton has delivered a quiet revolution in the application of integrated geoscience to the fast-growing unconventional market. The rapid delivery of fast-track volumes combined with meaningful estimation of rock properties is enabling E&P operators working in unconventional plays to avoid high-cost, low-pro - duction wells and focus drilling and completion resources on the most prolific opportunities. n

E&P DAILY NEWS | OCT. 28, 2014 | TUESDAY 21