Gravity and cheaper 3D - transformational technologies? - by David Bamford
Feature Articles, Sep  01  2009 (Digital Energy Journal)

- Much is made of the fact that the oil & gas resources of our planet will last many decades yet: this is evident if one digs into the most recent BP annual Statistical Review of World Energy . It is also true that much of this petroleum still needs to be found, whether in new discoveries or upgrades of existing discoveries or increases in the recovery factor of currently producing fields or even in the resurrection of currently abandoned fields.

David Bamford is a non executive director of Tullow Oil and a past head of exploration with BP

Finding Petroleum in the future will take us to tougher areas, more complex geology, more difficult reservoirs and, unless we are very smart, much higher Finding Costs. It would be wrong, ironic and a great shame if, as companies increased expenditures coming out of the current downturn, they find less barrels and molecules due to tough problems and rampant oil field service prices!

“Know How”, including the smart application of technology, is the key. Although the oil & gas industry is perceived as deeply conservative, nonetheless it has given birth to, and matured, some truly transformational ideas and technologies. As a geophysicist, I’d think for example of the shift from analogue to digital technologies, from explosives to air-guns and vibrators, from 2D to 3D seismic. I guess I started working in the industry a few years before the first “postage stamp” 3D surveys were shot over producing fields in the North Sea: when I moved to Aberdeen in 1986, I was stunned to learn that it took up to two years to move from planning a 3D to having a 1st Pass interpretation.

Subsequently Finding Petroleum was revolutionized during the 1990’s by the availability of ‘exploration 3D’ covering huge offshore areas at low unit cost and, eventually, with much shortened plan-through-to-complete interpretation cycle-times. Of course there was huge customer ‘pull’ – led by the Majors – but if I had to single out one decisive contributor it would be PGS who introduced their RamForm vessels, towing multiple streamers, and transformed 3D marine acquisition technology ‘overnight’.

If I had to choose one potentially ‘transformational’ technology of today, unusually for me I would look away from the seismic world to gravity gradiometry, especially airborne, systems. Such systems measure changes to the gravity vector components, the gradients or spatial rates of change, in the gravity field. Unlike a conventional gravimeter, which measures only the magnitude of the gravity field, these systems acquire data from all directions. Gravity gradiometry may well prove invaluable onshore as a relatively inexpensive – though not ‘cheap’ - reconnaissance tool that allows subsequent, more expensive, seismic to be well focused and seems (to me) to be a world away from the vague and ambiguous offerings of conventional gravity and magnetics. ArkEx and Bell Geospace are leading the charge.

Linked with both of the above, my ‘desired technology of the future’ is easy to articulate – onshore and transition zone 3D seismic that has similar unit costs and cycle-times to marine 3D. As the unit costs for a ‘difficult’ onshore 3D can be an order of magnitude more than those for a straightforward marine survey, I have to admit that these words are easier to articulate than to deliver! But in a UK Government-like surge of optimism, I can see ‘green shoots’! My impression is that such a technology transformation is most likely to be led by a relatively new player (as PGS were, and ArkEx and Bell Geospace are) rather than one of the ‘big boys’.

Perhaps that’s inevitably true of any technology, in any industry? Perhaps the big, established players have so much invested in their current offerings, including emotional and intellectual investment if they developed their current technology themselves, that they find it difficult to think ‘outside the box’ and/or spend more of their energies trying to keep new players out of their market?

Nevertheless, if we could have gravity gradiometry and cheap, rapid 3D everywhere, that would really help Finding Petroleum.

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