Digital Rock, EOR projects to boost recovery, extend life of oil and gas fields

10 December2010—Shell and Schlumberger announced a multiyear research technology cooperation agreement focusing on improving the recovery factor of oil and gas reservoirs and extending the life of existing oil and natural gas fields.

The combination of Schlumberger formation evaluation and reservoir characterization knowledge with the subsurface laboratory and reservoir expertise of Shell will result in the development of better tools and methods to obtain improved field data, better and more efficient numerical models, and enhanced field development methods. The research collaboration is an expansion of the joint work on several fronts Shell and Schlumberger already conduct together, and it will initially focus on two specific projects: Reservoir Surveillance for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects, and Digital Rock for detailed numerical modeling of reservoir rocks.

The key target of the cooperation is to shorten development cycles, increase production, and enhance ultimate oil and gas recovery. To achieve this, the Surveillance project will explore the design, development and testing of a new generation of tools specifically focused on EOR applications. These new surveillance tools and techniques are expected to deliver more accurate field data and to accelerate EOR feasibility studies and pilot projects.

The Digital Rock project targets development of better methods to forecast displacement and recovery at the macroscopic pore scale, as well as methodologies to scale up core and pore-scale work to reservoir level for both sandstone and carbonate fields. The related work builds on recent developments from Shell and Schlumberger in the areas of novel laboratory scanning technology, fluid dynamics modeling, and high-performance computing.

As part of this joint cooperation agreement, Schlumberger and Shell research scientists will work closely together in several research facilities in the US, UK, Russia, Oman and the Netherlands.
 

CGGVeritas announces future marine joint venture with Petrovietnam

16 December 2010—CGGVeritas has signed a term sheet with Petrovietnam Technical Services Corporation to create a 2D/3D marine joint venture to operate 2D and 3D marine seismic vessels, primarily in Vietnamese waters.

The joint venture will provide seismic data acquisition services for the oil and gas clients operating locally in Vietnam and the region.
 

Sigma offers option of cabling together its cableless acquisition units

16 December 2010—iSeis Co., Oklahoma-based developer and manufacturer of the Sigma cableless seismic acquisition system, announced that Sigma is now the first such instrument to offer the option of cabling together its cableless acquisition units. These ground boxes need no internal modification for this functionality to be enabled.

Sigma is the only recorder able to send back data in seismic real time from active spreads ranging from 2Ds and 3Ds to passive spreads of hundreds of square miles. It also provides multiple options of time stamping data, for periods when GPS reception is poor or nonexistent. Offering the ability to cable together ground units is another first for the industry.

Whereas cableless recorders usually boast about having done away with digital spread telemetry cables, iSeis recognises that instrumentation which cannot offer a wide range of features is an expensive risk—that cableless systems must be universal and not just suited to niche applications. Providing the ability to hardwire Sigma acquisition units together is an important feature to make cablefree hardware fit for all purposes, having applications in the passive recording marketing as well as in active acquisition, on land as well as on (and under) water.

Networks of channels, in any layout pattern or geometry, can be deployed with Sigma cabling. The cable can lead to the central system or just form part of a remote Seismic-LAN. In either case, the ground units remain unchanged allowing one Sigma system to offer the full spectrum of cablefree recording capabilities from shoot blind, on through a proprietary mesh radio network be remotely controlled and return QC/status information, or with an optional wifi have the ability to transmit full data sets, and now also be cabled together.

Users can mix and match any of this functionality, as well as use Sigma side-by-side existing third party recorders. Combined with source control functionality from its sister company, Seismic Source Co., any combination of multiple sources and receiver/recording systems of multiple types can now be used for the first time in the history of land seismic instrumentation.