Business News for the week of 18 October 2012

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Seismic crew survey reports

TGS announces 3D multiclient onshore survey in British Columbia, Canada

4 October 2012—TGS, through its subsidiary Arcis Seismic Solutions, is undertaking the Cameron River 3D survey, a 470 km²(181.5 mi²) onshore 3D multiclient project in northeast British Columbia, Canada.

The survey will be acquired along the prolific liquids-rich Triassic Montney and Doig unconventional fairways.  High-resolution seismic will enable exploration for stratigraphic and structural traps and will illuminate the Cretaceous through Devonian section.

The seismic data will be processed by Arcis. Intermediate products will be available to the industry in early 2013 with final data available mid 2013.

 

Fugro Robertson names Chi as RoqScan operations manager

4 October 2012—Chi Vinh Ly has been named RoqSCAN operations manager of Fugro Robertson Inc. Based in Houston, Chi's responsibilities include the management of field- and laboratory-based projects for RoqSCAN. Additionally, he will manage the ongoing development of the RoqSCAN's capabilities with Carl Zeiss, the manufacturer of the base RoqSCAN system.

 

Emerson launches integrated reservoir engineering software suite

4 October 2012—Emerson Process Management has launched Roxar Tempest 7.0, an integrated reservoir engineering software suite that provides a single interface to E&P reservoir engineers.

The new integrated solution, which operates alongside Emerson Roxar's reservoir modeling solution, RMS, builds on the previous versions of Emerson's simulation and history matching software. The five modules can be deployed as an integrated unit with a common interface or individually.  Links to all major commercial and many proprietary simulators give engineers the ability to customize their workflows or opt for a fully integrated solution.

 

Schlumberger launches new wireline formation testing service

5 October 2012—Schlumberger introduced the Saturn 3D radial probe as the newest module for the MDT modular formation dynamics tester. With the Saturn probe, customers can now obtain pressure measurements and fluid samples where they were not previously possible due to reservoir conditions.

The Saturn probe is comprised of four elliptical suction probes mounted at 90º intervals circumferentially around the tool, providing the largest surface flow area of any probe in the industry—more than 500 times that of a standard probe.

The Saturn probe has been run in South America, Africa, and the Middle East in environments ranging from onshore to deep water. In Mexico, the Saturn probe successfully sampled fluids as low as 7 API gravity from unconsolidated formations with unconfined compressive strength as low as 300 psi, which would have been difficult using conventional probes. In the Middle East, the Saturn probe sampled fluid in formations with mobility less than 2 mD/cP, enabling the customer to accurately identify the location of the hydrocarbon-water contact point.

 

Schlumberger adds new spectroscopy service to the scanner family

8 October 2012—Schlumberger has added the Litho Scanner high-definition spectroscopy serviceto their scanner family rock and fluid characterization services.

The Litho Scanner service measures an enhanced suite of elements, including carbon, magnesium, and aluminum, in real time to help provide a detailed description of complex reservoirs, including unconventional, shaly sand and carbonate. In addition, this latest wireline service provides a stand-alone quantitative determination of total organic carbon (TOC), critical for the evaluation of shale reservoirs.

The Litho Scanner service has been run successfully on more than 80 wells in all the major shale plays in North America, in South America, and in conventional reservoirs. In Canada, the Litho Scanner service was successfully used to interpret the mineralogy in a lithologically complex shale gas reservoir comprising multiple clay types in addition to quartz, feldspar, calcite, dolomite, ankerite, and pyrite. The determination of TOC enabled both an accurate quantification of total porosity and a quantitative assessment of reservoir quality.

In the Barnett shale, Litho Scanner data in conjunction with sCore lithofacies classification was used to identify the potentially most productive layers of an organic mudstone reservoir. This technology choice enabled an optimized completion design to maximize hydrocarbon recovery.

 

The next generation of RokDoc

10 October 2012—Ikon Science has released the next generation of its flagship software, RokDoc.  Deriving its name from the latin "Quod Erat Demonstrandum" and playing on the theme of Ikon's core business of quantitative exploration and development, RokDoc^QEDis being used by oil companies worldwide to carry out 3D reservoir analysis.

The new rock physics inversion module, which links simultaneous inversion, spectral, and other inversion methods with seismic data conditioning tools, creates an environment for producing quantitative and geologically accurate 3D volumes and maps. RokDoc users can now use a faster and more sophisticated forward and inverse modeling of all rock, fluid, and pressure scenarios in clastic, carbonate, and unconventional plays.  Other new capabilities include a major expansion of the suite's geopressure prediction capabilities, which create 3D pressure volumes and optimized well planning.  Among many new features there is a set of calculators for fracture pressure and seismic pressure. 

 

Wireless Seismic announces the purchase of RT System 2 by MicroSeismic to monitor hydraulic fracturing operations

16 October 2012—Seismic, Inc. announced the sale of its RT System 2 real-time and cable-less seismic data acquisition system to MicroSeismic, Inc., who will begin using RT System 2 in their passive seismic monitoring operationsstarting in October.
 
Wireless Seismic will exhibit RT System 2 at the annual conference of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in Las Vegas, Nevada, 4–7 November.

 

Emerson launches Total Uncertainty Management program

17 October 2012—Emerson Process Management is teaming with Statoil in a Total Uncertainty Management program. The program will focus on how E&P companies can improve history matching and uncertainty management and quantification across the entire reservoir characterization workflow through Roxar ENABLE, Emerson's history matching and uncertainty estimation software solution. The program is one of a number of commercial implementation projects Emerson is conducting for Statoil.