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Spectraseis' microseismic arrays used in 5 North America unconventional plays.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Spectraseis, a company which provides microseismic tools based in Houston (previously Switzerland) reports that it has completed a microseismic modelling program covering five North America unconventional plays including the Montney, Wolfcamp, and Woodford basins.

The microseismic data was recorded both on surface and in boreholes.

Spectraseis provides a high-sensitivity, three-component (3-C) surface and borehole microseismic array.

It was able to record fracture data for zones of depth 2000 to 2100m (6,500 to 6,900) feet.

It could show the orientation and location of fractures.

Continuous recordings after the end of fracture operations revealed significant microseismicity outside the pumping period, indicating that the fracture stimulation did not end with the completion of pressure pumping.

Spectraseis also modelled the ambient (natural) seismic wavefields before and after the frac, and this showed the reservoir zones were altered during the fracture, the company says.

Some of the data analysis was made by the "MIC consortium", a microseismic research partnership hosted by the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

Spectraseis claimed that its instruments recorded a 2-3 times wider range of microseismic events, and 3-4 times more detected events, than is available from "conventional" borehole microseismic instruments.

The shear wave data is providing much stronger (and more useful) than p-wave data, demonstrating the importance of doing 3 component recording, says Rob Habiger, Chief Technical Officer of Spectraseis.

The company now has a backlog of orders for 2012.

It was recently awarded a $4m surface survey contract with a "major" North American customer, the company's third contract with this customer.

There is a large demand for fracture monitoring and stimulation evaluation methods for unconventional gas in North America, the company says.

It plans to double the size of its equipment fleet in 2012.

The company has launched an industry consortium to advance microseismic fracture monitoring technologies called "ULTRA" which stands for Unconventional Leading Technology Reservoir Analysis. The consortium aims to address "high-value technical questions" through "collaboration with leading operators and researchers," under a 2 year program.

Initial partners include Chevron, researchers at the Colorado School of Mines, and Calgary-based reservoir modeling specialists Computer Modelling Group. http://www.spectraseis.com/partnerships/ultra/

It has also filed its 70th patent filing covering technologies for microseismic fracture monitoring, stimulation evaluation and reservoir fluid system monitoring. The company has a range of patents covering Time-Reverse Imaging (TRI) full elastic wave-equation migration for microseismic data; Seismic attributes and seismic data processing methods and Ambient Wave-field Characterization (AWC) techniques for passive seismic data.

It has appointed Simmons & Company as strategic advisor "to advise on strategic options to position the company for continued strong growth."

Associated Companies
» Spectraseis

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