Archive  April 1999 Vol. 220 No. 4  Exploration

Perry A. Fischer,  Engineering Editor

More software standards; cut that cable; gravity for free

With the plethora of non-profit, industry-sponsored, open-standards organizations, it’s no surprise that Microsoft has introduced its own open standards for the energy industry; and it has the backing of four other energy software providers: Landmark Graphics, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP and Schlumberger Geoquest. Together, these five industry heavyweights have created COM for Energy, a new not-for-profit industry initiative to improve E&P performance.

The idea is not new: accelerate technical and business integration by developing software interface specifications. These open-object specifications ensure interoperability of applications and will be based on Microsoft’s Component Object Model (COM) architecture.

Supporters of the new, open-standards consortia were easy to find. Randi Olsen, senior vice president of E&P Technology, Statoil, said industry standards "are a major contributor to cost reductions and productivity gains throughout our E&P activities."

BP likes the idea too. "It’s well known that our company is a strong supporter of industry standards and open computing architectures to provide interoperability between applications and platforms, and this initiative has particular promise to create new value for the industry," said Christy Connelly, vice president, Upstream IT, BP Amoco. "This initiative complements our company’s vision of a networked world that removes all barriers along the energy value chain."

Under discussion for more than six months, the new open specifications are being designed to complement existing standards, such as POSC and SAP BAPI interface standards. David Archer, POSC president and CEO said "COM for Energy is committed to building on, and be compatible with, the foundations that the industry has established through POSC and other related initiatives."

This developing standard aims to allow information to be exchanged across current boundaries both within organizations and between companies. The new object specification will eventually be managed by an independent third-party organization with the participation of industry software developers.

The initiative is open to additional energy software and service-vendor members, as well as petroleum companies that want to serve in advisory roles. For more information, visit the initiative’s web site at www.com4energy.com.

Shortening seismic cable. Conoco has designed a new survey layout for getting around obstacles when shooting land seismic in difficult areas.

The method involves using segments of commercially available, 1/4mi long, Input / Output RSR cables, instead of miles of continuous seismic cable, and then spacing these lengths up to 1/4mi apart. Most recently manufactured acquisition systems feature radio transmission and data storage capability, which allow companies much greater operational flexibility. When an obstacle is encountered, an extra radio / data-storage unit is applied after the gap, and the area is skipped.

Last year, Conoco advanced the new survey design as a way to reduce injuries on steep cliffs and avoid environmentally sensitive areas in the San Juan basin of New Mexico. Peter Eick, a geophysicist with Conoco, said, "Previously, we had professional mountain climbers run the lines through steep, mountainous areas — and we still had injuries."

A problem arises from the new acquisition geometry, which was neither circular, square, nor a regular brick pattern (Vibroseis trucks had to stay on the roads). To compensate for this, Conoco flipped the receivers into a brick pattern using the cable segments. Eick wrote short script files that allowed the data output from existing commercial software packages to be shared, which facilitated the variable shooting.

"For the San Juan project ... we had zero recordable injuries. We also reduced exposure to lightning strikes, which can hit a cable and endanger a crew member working on an interconnected cable far away." Conoco also significantly reduced costs and lowered the environmental impact of the seismic survey; both are especially important in today’s industry.

Free gravity map. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? The folks at EDCON are offering a free, satellite-derived gravity map that covers about 8,000 km of Brazil’s coastal areas. The high-quality map includes blocks offered in an upcoming licensing round, the country’s first. The full-color gravity map shows the regional gravity of the coast and its relationship to Atlantic Ocean tectonics. Looks nice in the office too. You can download the poster-size map at www.edcom.com.

Survey design software. Green Mountain Geophysics, an Input / Output subsidiary, with the assistance of the Gas Research Institute, has released new survey-design software called MESA GRIP. This is the company’s first program targeted for the emerging reservoir-imaging market.

The software can simulate both downhole and surface geometry. The company says the new tool allows surveys to be designed for "specific targets and their attributes, and aids in designing cost-effective surveys specifically for reservoir imaging for both exploration and reservoir monitoring."

Geologic model building and ray tracing are incorporated in the survey design. Based on a geologic model, questions can be answered about optimum survey geometries with respect to focusing on targeted zones. Direct incorporation of the geologic model in the design process allows quantitative identification of unused or redundant data acquisition. The model can be varied to test its validity.

Version 1.0 incorporates several new measurement concepts, including a target-based ray shooter, which generates rays based on a desired reflection angle. It also features a dynamic 3-D visualization package, 3-D modeling using velocity inversion, design comparisons using synthetic trace cubes, and a library of diagnostic displays that assist in interpretation of ray-tracing results. The diagnostics resulted from research by Blackhawk Geometrics, ARCO, Phillips Petroleum, Shell and Texas A&M University. For more information, contact Schelly Olson at 303/442-0531.

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Copyright © 1999 Gulf Publishing Company