Remote Sensing – The Rise of the Virtual Geologist
Over the years remote sensing has developed from an obscure and expensive experiment to an essential and cost effective tool in the search for hydrocarbons, particularly in remote and inaccessible…
Technology
Episodic Global Tectonics: Sequence Stratigraphy Meets Plate Tectonics
Based on recent advances in plate tectonics, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, I suggest that the Earth is affected by relatively short-lived episodes of increased tectonic activity separated by longer intervals…
AVO responses: The good, the bad and the evil
AVO analysis provides the geologists with a powerful tool that give information about pore fluids, lithologies and reservoir pressures. However, AVO signatures can easily be misinterpreted without a proper feasibility…
Sand intrusions reveal increased reserves
Highly permeable sand bodies injected into low permeability shales may provide additional reserves to existing discoveries and fields if properly recognized. Such sandstones, a product of postdepositional remobilisation, may also…
Introducing geological processes in reservoir models
Reservoir modelling and reservoir simulation are based on data collected at multiple scales with resolution ranging from sub-millimetre to tens of metres. New software using knowledge of the geological processes…
Creating values through new technology
The technological breakthroughs of the onwards from the early 1990s have had enormous implications for the oil and gas exploration and production industry. New methods, changing work processes and an…
Kristin – a tough lady
A deeply buried reservoir – characterised by ultrahigh pore pressures and temperatures – represent a major challenge for both petroleum and drilling engineers. To minimise risk and maximise the collaborative…
Planning software streamlines the decision process
Inconsistent methods used in the well planning process can result in erroneous decisions that have significant impact on field economics. By using a generic decision support tool, well projects can…
The same PRINCIPLE as in borehole logging
Reservoir rocks have much lower electrical conductivity if they are saturated with oil rather than salt water. This is the principle, well known from borehole logging, which is exploited in…
More geology with seismic velocities
Until recently, seismic velocities have had low value spin-off value as it was only used for migrating seismic data and depth stretching from time to depth domain in workstations. The…
Nimble Nodes
Tiny seismic nodes making high density land seismic accessible to all industries. Seismic acquisition has seldom seen such challenging times, especially onshore, where we are seeing tighter budgets and tougher…
The new UK National Data Repository: another milestone in accessing subsurface data
In 2015, when I carried out a small project that involved looking at composite logs from UKCS wells, I visited the OGA office near the Aberdeen railway station and spent…