Conoco Inc. was awarded the first in a series of pending US patents for a technique the company expects to dramatically improve exploration results in challenging areas like the Gulf of Mexico subsalt province.
Geophysicists in Conoco's Seismic Imaging Technology Center in Ponca City, Okla., developed the patent, "Method for Gravity and Magnetic Data Inversion Using Vector and Tensor Data," over several years. Conoco said it applied the technique with "impressive results" to challenging areas in the gulf and on the UK Atlantic Margin.
Conoco said it first developed the technique in order to explore beneath large salt bodies in the gulf. It later applied the method to similar challenges caused by lava flows in the Atlantic deepwater provinces and several other international exploration plays where seismic data alone were inadequate.
The method enabled accurate delineation of base of salt and led to an unspecified discovery in the Green Canyon area.
Conoco's first application of the new method involved use of conventional gravity and magnetic data, before utilizing more advanced, full tensor gravity gradiometry (FTG) methods.
Conoco said it believes its leading-edge inversion technique gives it a distinctive advantage in evaluating prospective acreage in the gulf.
The US Navy developed FTG methods and later licensed them to Bell Geospace Corp. for use in the oil and gas industry (OGJ, Sept. 14, 1998, p. 60).
Conoco's patented method permits gravity, magnetic, and FTG data to be integrated with the company's other leading edge technologies in depth imaging, pore pressure prediction, and seismic analysis to solve complex problems in the most difficult exploration areas where seismic data alone cannot determine what is in the subsurface.
