The well listeners
Karol Jewuła. “ I recently gave a talk in Kuala Lumpur,” says geologist and pore pressure specialist Karol Jewuła, “for which I made an overview of drilling-related issues with wells…
Technology
How AI helps democratize seismic interpretation
“The times of gurus telling younger staff how to plough through a seismic volume and what to interpret is over,” says Herman van Nieuwoudt from Bluware. Herman started as the…
“You need some chaos to thrive as a company”
“Let’s get this straight,” Benoît Matha says at the start of our conversation on a Friday morning in February, “the subsurface upstream business is not a big data environment.” It…
“We’re in this weird time of pre-AI and post-AI”
A few months ago, I published some thoughts on how Norway has proven to be such a hotspot when it comes to new subsurface technology. Dan Austin, who has been…
How your WhatsApp call helps detect seismic activity
Our global telecommunications infrastructure consists of millions of kilometers of fiber optic cables. These include terrestrial and subsea networks that ensure that information travels across the planet. With the increased…
Can technology replace fieldwork?
At times of better access to digital outcrop imagery, drone footage and satellite shots, is it still worth going into the field to have a look at the rocks in…
Finding scribbles on the sides of composite well logs
It must have been in November 2018, as I chaired a session at the PETEX Conference in London, when Ronny Parr from bp gave a talk entitled “From Trash to…
Less oil, more water
It is something that I am not often exposed to, but that does not mean it is unimportant – produced water. The SPE Aberdeen section organized a panel discussion around…
How AI-based image analysis of cuttings enables better reservoir definition
With the advance of new AI-based technologies, drill cutting data can now be quickly and consistently analyzed and interpreted to better characterize the subsurface. Working together with Bapco Upstream, we…
Getting drill-ready for the energy transition
Frank van Bergen “If you don’t include the subsurface in the journey towards reducing CO2 emissions, it will be impossible to reach net zero”, says Frank van Bergen. Frank heads…
The evolution of managed pressure drilling
Nick Ward “Managed pressure drilling (MPD) has been around for a long time”, says Nick Ward when we meet in his office in Tullos, Aberdeen. Nick oversees the MPD business…
Data fabric architecture – the solution to explore better?
Geologists like visuals. That is why Puneet Saraswat and his colleagues from Querent AI are a step ahead already, because they create visuals, out of large collections of reports. They…