Engineers hold the key to future advances in seismic technology.
They are customers in a new market for 3D seismic information, says W.F. Kiel, manager, geophysics portfolio, for Shell Oil Co. That market is reservoir characterization.
But there are challenges, Kiel told the International Association of Geophysical Contractors annual meeting in Houston.
Resolution the ability to distinguish one subsurface object from another will have to double to suit the needs of reservoir, petroleum, and petrophysical engineers. And computing power will have to increase by two orders of magnitude.
"The initial challenge is to accelerate the use of seismic in the reservoir environment," Kiel said. "This will have to be a focused effort, not a sideline activity."
ENGINEERS AND 3D DATA
With seismic attention moving from exploration to reservoir characterization, engineers will begin to influence seismic technological development the way geologists did 30 years ago.
The technology that attracted geologists to seismic techniques was stacking, the averaging of digital seismic traces to suppress noise. One result of the technology was a seismic section that looked like a basic geologic cross section.
Geologists took what had been a gross structural tool and, working with geophysicists, began using it to interpret stratigraphy, correlating seismic data with well information, improving resolution, and finding new uses for amplitude information.
"Engineers are beginning to relate to the 3D data volume the way geologists related to the stacked section," Kiel said.
One motivation is the cross discipline work team, which companies are using to promote data sharing in efforts to cut costs and risks.
In the new work environment, high resolution seismic information offers what Kiel called "obvious opportunities for reservoir characterization."
It can delineate reservoir continuity, create images of small structures, and improve reservoir simulation, he said. Time lapse 3D might be able to monitor various types of floods.
"But the real advances will come when the engineer begins to understand and influence the future direction of the tools."
MORE ADVANCES
A doubling of what now is considered high resolution seismic will require advances in conventional areas such as acquisition, signal processing, statics, and velocity analysis.
Fully automated techniques involving cross discipline data and forms of artificial intelligence probably will enter the picture. And workers will have to be able to rapidly handle very large data sets.
The Shell executive doesn't think the seismic role in exploration has ended. The industry's concentration on exploitation of existing fields and use of cross discipline teams and workstations make reservoir characterization the greater emphasis for now.
If needed technological progress occurs, exploration will benefit.
"Hopefully," Kiel said, "when it's time to push exploration again, we will have the tools we need to be successful."
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