Business news for the week of 25 February 2009 Past news briefs Ingrain signs agreements with Chevron and ConocoPhillips
18 February 2009—Houston-based Ingrain announced that Chevron and ConocoPhillips have signed commercial agreements to use the company’s digital rock-physics services.
Since 2007, Ingrain has introduced technology in 3D imaging and computation that allows the company to compute physical properties and fluid flows in oil and gas reservoir rocks.
Ingrain is opening offices in Calgary and Rio de Janeiro and plans to expand its operations to the Middle East sometime this year. AGI releases Status of the Geoscience Workforce
18 February 2009—The American Geological Institute Workforce Program has released its second chapter, “Trends in Geoscience Education at Four Year Institutions,” of the Status of the Geoscience Workforce report. Chapters one and two of this report are now available through the AGI website at http://www.agiweb.org/workforce/. “Trends in Geoscience Education at Four-Year Institutions” examines data pertaining to geosciences enrollments, degrees, field camps, and funding dynamics for students, faculty, and research in the geosciences. The Status of the Geoscience Workforce report is based on original data collected by AGI as well as from existing data from federal sources, professional and scientific membership organizations, and industry. The report integrates all available data into a comprehensive view of the human and economic parameters of the geosciences, including supply and training of new students, workforce demographics, and employment projections, to trends in geoscience research funding and other economic indicators. SMT expands strategic relationship with OpenSpirit
23 February 2009—Seismic-Micro Technology (SMT) and OpenSpirit announced that the two companies will provide the ability to share data between geoscience applications. SMT will leverage the full power of the OpenSpirit v3.x interoperability framework in an upcoming release of its KINGDOM software. The next-generation SMT KINGDOM Application Adapter will allow interpreters to work in the Windowsenvironment while sharing data with any OpenSpirit-enabled application or data repository. Customers will be able to move data between KINGDOM and other OpenSpirit-enabled geoscience applications, regardless of their operating system. Supported applications include Halliburton's Landmark OpenWorks software and Schlumberger's GeoFrame and Petrelsoftware. OpendTect VMB & PSDM system launched
23 February 2009—dGB Earth Sciences and Geokinetics have launched a new system for velocity model building and prestack depth-migration processing. The new software runs in OpendTect and was developed with financial support from Gaz de France and OMV. The first release comprises three (closed source) plugins. VMB is a dGB proprietary plugin for picking RMO velocities and prestack events. PSDM-Tomography and PSDM-Kirchhoff are proprietary plugins by Geokinetics. These plugins are released with relevant tools from Ethos, Geokinetics’ internal seismic processing system, to form a complete PSDM processing system. RPSEA contracts with Knowledge Reservoir for deepwater study
23 February 2009—Knowledge Reservoir announced a contract with the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA), to provide project direction and technical services for a project awarded under the RPSEA Ultra-Deepwater Program. The project will deliver a research report and characterization database of deepwater and ultra-deepwater assets in the Gulf of Mexico focused on incentives, needs assessment analyses, and concepts identification for the application of improved recovery techniques in deepwater. The project will be directed by Knowledge Reservoir, with primary project participants Louisiana State University and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. The project will identify improved recovery opportunities in the early stages of field-development planning, such that facility and well designs can be optimized to take advantage of those opportunities. Additionally, opportunities for improved recovery in producing fields will be assessed, as will current and near-future technologies for improved recovery. The project will include characterization of deepwater and ultra-deepwater reservoir assets and compile and categorize key causes of trapped and remaining hydrocarbons in such reservoirs. The prioritization of technology gaps in improved recovery methods will also be addressed as they specifically relate to deepwater and ultra-deepwater reservoirs, with the aim of identifying leading concepts for future research, investment, development, testing, and deployment/application. A review of IOR/EOR techniques, experience, and best practices, both on- and offshore, will be conducted. New addition to SKUA technology suite
24 February 2009—Paradigm announced the release of Paradigm SKUA 2009, its 3D modeling software environment that connects seismic and simulation by removing current modeling limitations. The SKUA 2009 workflow expands SKUA capabilities into the interpretation field by linking the interpreter and modeler roles.
SKUA 2009 introduces Interpretation Modeling (previewed as Prospect Architecture), a new software solution containing integrated workflows between seismic and geologic interpretation and modeling. The new package is designed to help interpreters, modelers, and reservoir teams merge seismic interpretation and SKUA UVT-based modeling to enable better interpretation. The 2009 release also introduces Stratigraphic Interpretation Modeling, based on SKUA technology, which provides tools to concurrently perform stratigraphic interpretation, geochronological modeling, and to perform 3D seismic paleo-restoration to restore depositional continuity.
The package also includes SKUA 2009 Engineering Modeling, which provides unbiased flow simulation grids in any structural or stratigraphic settings. The Engineering Modeling solution is a collaborative environment that enables geoscientists and reservoir engineers to develop geologically coherent production forecasts and control development risks. | 
