Seabed surveyorsbreak new ground

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2007

Indonesia illuminatesfrontier basins

Gorgon lands localgreen verdict

Shipyards think smallfor FPSO connection

AOGA S I A N O I L & G A S

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Arandom sample of SEG visitorobservations suggests that mostfelt staging the Society’s flagship

event in New Orleans was a very positivestatement, the only negatives werereserved for the federal government’slevel of support in assisting the city’srecovery.

The analogy may be a bit of a stretch,but the seismic business knows all aboutthe recovery process after its nearcollapse five or six years ago and itstroubles in the late 1980s, for those with

long memories. It’s all about momentumand critical mass. In the case of NewOrleans this is still observably a work inprogress, but the expectation must be thatit will suddenly come alive again, even ifchanged somewhat in character.

Now riding the upward cycle, seismicbusiness is definitely back, but with somesignificant changes. For example, whowould have thought that wide azimuthseismic surveys and controlled sourceelectromagnetic (CSEM) would be thestanding room only sessions at the SEG?

The wide azimuth craze raises someinteresting questions about the futuredirection of marine seismic operations.The major contractors have all rushed toembrace the technique, because itprovides an opportunity for some ‘addedvalue’ just when the 3D seismic survey isincreasingly falling into the commoditycategory. Results shared at the SEG andelsewhere have shown fairly convincinglythat wide azimuth shooting is able toimprove the imaging of complex subsaltgeological structures. Although the

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Riding the upward cycleThe seismic business knows all about the recovery process, making the venue choicefor the Society of Exploration Geologists’ recent annual meeting all the moreappropriate. Andrew McBarnet reports from New Orleans.

Riding the upward cycleThe seismic business knows all about the recovery process, making the venue choicefor the Society of Exploration Geologists’ recent annual meeting all the moreappropriate. Andrew McBarnet reports from New Orleans.

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immediate target has been the Gulf ofMexico subsalt, the assumption is thatcertain areas of the North Sea, West ofShetland, for example, West Africa,Southeast Asia, and the like, will becandidates for the wide azimuth surveytreatment.

Hidden treasuresA little discussed benefit of wide azimuthwhich helps to explain its attraction foroil companies is that the technologyopens up a channel for them to put their

current abundance of cash thanks to aprolonged period of stratospheric oilprices. It’s often remarked these days thatthe old business model has changed andthat international oil companies nolonger have a lock on any acreage whichbecomes available. Something like two-thirds of the world’s future oil andgas reserves are said to be controlled bynational oil companies (NOCs), and thecompetition in licensing rounds aroundthe world is fierce with the afore-mentioned NOCs muscling in on thescene just to make it that bit tougher.

In this context, the wide azimuthsurvey is something of a blessing forcurrent oil company stakeholders whocan review some of their existingproperties in the new light offered by thetechnology and, who knows, may berewarded with the discovery of somehidden treasures. There are of course noguarantees, and it was clear at the SEGmeeting that optimum acquisition andprocessing for azimuth surveys is stillbeing evolved. Even so, it looks as thoughplenty of companies are consideringgiving it a shot.

Emphasis on wide azimuth had somepeople at SEG wondering about theimplications for multi-componentsurveys which rely on ocean bottomreceivers in order to record both p(pressure) and s (shear) waves.Proponents of multi-component surveysargue that the ocean bottom surveyinstrumentation, whether in the form ofcables or nodes, enables the acquisition ofthe s waves which are regarded asinvaluable in the imaging of complexgeologies such as subsalt environments.The objection to seabed techniques hasalways revolved around ‘bang for yourbuck’ and the challenging data processingissues that have not been satisfactorilyresolved. Now it seems that wide azimuthmay offer a cost effective, towed streameroption for imaging some of thesepreviously problematic prospects.

The current frenzy in the marineseismic survey market has helped tosideline the OBC business. No one has gottime for it, so it just isn’t on the agenda ofmost contractors as they rush to meet theless demanding requirements of theconventional towed streamer business.Even before wide azimuth burst onto thescene, oil companies were beingpersuaded that the improved subsurfaceimaging possible from the moresophisticated high resolution technology,such as WesternGeco’s Q-Marine, PGS’s3DHD, and CGG’s Eye-D presented an

acceptable, cost effective alternative toOBC surveys.

It would be wrong to say that the majorcontractors, to whom oil companies lookfor ‘the next best thing’, have given upaltogether on the multi-componentoption. It’s true that Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), one of the few OBCsurvey operators, last year opted to re-assign the relevant resources of its twoOBC crews into towed streameroperations because these were perceivedto be more lucrative. However, it didadvise that it might revisit OBC in thefuture, so it wasn’t that much of asurprise to find that the company had ondisplay at SEG an example of its fibreoptic cable R&D. In a nutshell, thecompany believes that an optical 4C(multi-component) seafloor cable could bethe preferred solution for permanentlyinstalled reservoir monitoring systems ofthe future. It says that ‘the densewavelength division multiplexingtechnology offers significant flexibility interms of large dynamic range, the use ofa very small number of optical fibres torecord from several thousand channels,no in-sea electronics, light weight,reduced cost per channel, improvedsafety, and great reliability anddurability.’

UK company QinetiQ, with an oilindustry consortium, has also beenresearching the fibre optic route toeliminate the use of electronics at the‘wet end’ of seismic recording, so oceanbed seismic solutions are still beingruminated.

Paradoxically RXT (ReservoirExploration Technology) had what mighthave seemed to some as a perversely largebooth at SEG. It was certainly effective inflagging the fact that the company is verymuch in the OBC multi-componentsurvey business, and plans to be listed onthe Oslo stock exchange before the end ofthe year. At the show the companyannounced a $30-35 million multi-component seismic acquisition contractfor a new crew, its third, on the Kashaganfield, offshore Kazakhstan, operated byAgip on behalf of a group of sevencompanies. The complex operation willinvolve three shallow draft vessels tooperate in water depths of 3-4m. RXT hasindicated that the crew will become apermanent fixture in the Caspian Seaimplying some pent-up demand for theimaging made possible by OBC surveying.

The evolution of RXT from a start-upcompany just a few years ago appears toconfirm that OBC technology belongs for

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Night vision: emgs engineers preparingnew generation electromagnetic receiverfor deployment on the Atlantic Guardian,offshore Borneo.

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the time-being with a niche playerprepared to focus on the specificacquisition and processing challenges inorder to render a cost effective service.RXT has worked closely withInput/Output on the development of itsVectorSeis Ocean acquisition equipmentand has also been able to reduce OBCfrom a multi-vessel to a single vesseloperation. Last July the company ordereda custom-built ‘single vessel’ unit fordelivery in April 2008.

Alliance ageementAt SEG the observant may have spottedMike Scott, founder and CEO of RXT, indiscussion with another ex-PGS luminaryDiz Mackewn, who has started his owntechnology oriented company EnOvationResources to facilitate the development ofresources in mature provinces such as theNorth Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Lo andbehold, days after the SEG, the twocompanies announced an allianceagreement. RXT will provide EnOvationmulti-component acquisition servicesworth a minimum of $11 million over 27months. The first combined project gotunder way recently and involved a $2 million survey in the High Island areaof the Gulf of Mexico where one of RXT’sthree crews is located.

The decline in interest in OBC, RXTbeing the exception that proves the rule,has also muted some of the previousexcitement which hailed 4D seismic asthe next revolution in the industry. Thewidely predicted evolution of OBC and 4Dseismic into life of field seismicdevelopments has spawned less than ahandful of projects worldwide. It is truethat a number of the larger oil companiesoften make sure that the parameters ofearly 3D seismic surveys over newprospects can be used for comparisonwith subsequent time-lapse acquisition asa means of monitoring reservoirperformance. But this is by no meanscommon practice and to date has onlyfound real favour on the northwestEuropean continental shelf and a few

other locations around the world.Outside the research departments of

the main contractors, there are just a fewcompanies like 4th Wave Imaging in theUS and the newly formed ReservoirImaging (RIL) in the UK who can advisecompanies on how to optimize a 4Dsurvey. At SEG 4th Wave Imaging said itwould in future be working with Fugro’sseismic imaging group to provideadvanced data processing services,thereby filling a gap in the company’sexpertise and enabling it to supportclients through more of the 4D seismicproject workflow.

4D seismic to some extent may be avictim of the lack of in-house expertise inmany oil companies today. Basicallythere’s no one who can sell 4D to themanagement and carry the projectthrough. This doesn’t seem to be the casewith marine controlled sourceelectromagnetic (CSEM) survey

technology for the direct detection ofhydrocarbons – if the crowded sessionson the topic at SEG are any indicator.Excitement about CSEM has beenmatched by the speed of adoption, byimprovements in the technique since itwas introduced two or three years ago,and by the festering animosity overpatent rights between Norway’sElectromagnetic Geoservices (emgs) andthe UK’s Offshore HydrocarbonsMapping.

If it’s all in the timing, then emgs choseits moment by announcing halfwaythrough the SEG event that it was suingOHM in London’s High Court for allegedpatent infringement. In its only publiccomment, OHM expressed confidence thatno infringement had occurred and thatthe claim would have no impact on itsbusiness. Aficionados of this saga willrecall that the University ofSouthampton, founder of OHM, withdrewits appeal against the July 2005 judgementby the UK Patent Office in favour ofStatoil, with regard to the CSEMtechnique called Seabed Logging nowbeing used by egms, itself a spin-off fromStatoil. Best guess is that it could beanother year before any furtherjudgement is made.

At SEG emgs was talking about one of anumber of applications the company ismulling to broaden the scope of CSEM asan exploration tool. Based on its

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Recording equipmentbeing loaded during acontrolled sourceelectromagnetic surveyby OHM, which ismaintaining abusiness as usualapproach to patentinfringement claims.

What a permanent ocean bed seismicfield monitoring system might looklike using PGS fibre optic cable,currently under development.

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findinghydrocarbons@emgs.com© 2006 Electromagnetic Geoservices AS

Seabed loggingWinner of Hart’s E&P 2006Special Meritorious Awardfor Engineering Innovation

Stop exploring. Start finding.The last 20 years have seen huge advances in exploration technology.But success rates continue to decline.

A hit-and-miss affairTraditional exploration workflows rely on indirect evidence to find locations where hydrocarbons can exist. Formation resistivity is the industry’s preferred direct hydrocarbon indicator. Seabed logging improves the exploration workflow by measuring subsurface resistivity from the ocean floor. The new standardemgs’ seabed logging can show you where hydrocarbons do exist. Seabed logging is reinventing how the industry finds hydrocarbons, and is enabling new exploration strategies such as scanning frontier and mature regions for new leads.

These strategies are delivering prospects earlier than traditional methods. And operators continue to use seabed logging to rank prospects before they commit further resources.

It’s hardly surprising then, that over 35 leading operators worldwide are using seabed logging to evaluate existing prospects – and to find new ones.

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