Print this pageTechnology and Integration: Keys to Success In the 21st Century
MONCRIEFF, Stuart J.
Difficult challenges will face petroleum geoscientists in the 21st century. New and emerging play areas will be in remote locations with no established infrastructure. Deeper, more complex targets and deep water opportunities will stretch the limits of our current capabilities. Emerging technologies, such as seismic wavelet transforms, high resolution seismic, predictive stratigraphy and perhaps basin simulation with 3-phase, compositional fluid flow could reduce risk, cut cycle time, increase resolution and solve the technical and commercial challenges that lie ahead.
Successfully modeling basin processes could lead to improved understanding of petroleum system dynamics and reduced exploration risk. SEXTANT, Mobil's 3D, integrated basin simulator models many of the important geochemical, geomechanical and fluid flow processes occurring in a basin. SEXTANT integrates seismic, well log and engineering data to provide the required model constraints such as present day structure, stratigraphy, porosity, pressure and temperature. In addition to basin modeling, improved prediction of chaotic sedimentary processes will have a major impact on exploration success and define a key element of the petroleum system.
Seismic will be vital in defining key exploration risk elements. Seismic wavelet transforms can compress seismic data volumes and velocity models. Compressed data used in post-stack depth migration increases processing efficiency and reduces the data storage needs by two thirds. Seismic acquisition and processing techniques could dramatically increase seismic resolution. High Fidelity Vibratory Seismic is capable of increasing vertical resolution two-fold.
Significant opportunities offered through effective integration of all technologies, both current and emerging, will also be discussed.