Case studies

A large oil company

Reducing oil exploration risk by improving calculations for seismic survey designs

Business impact

An anticipated two-fold performance increase over current methods for calculating seismic survey designs.

Issue

To reduce the risks involved in exploratory drilling, seismic surveys are done to gather data for 3D models used to understand the size and location of oil fields (or squeeze more oil out of existing reservoirs). The oil company wanted to reduce the costs of seismic surveys and improve the quality of information gathered.

Executive summary

Seismic surveys are used to gather data to understand the geology of oil reserves before drilling exploratory wells. IBM Research is improving the calculations used to design seismic surveys, reducing the guesswork of oil exploration.

What IBM did

It's possible to improve reservoir imaging by understanding how seismic waves move through reservoirs. With better imaging, there is less risk involved with exploratory drilling and more effective oil production. However, reservoir image models are only as good as the data used to build them.

Obviously, accurate data is available in areas where many wells have already been drilled. If that isn't the case and the data doesn't exist, the company will set off an explosion and use seismic receivers to gather information on the shock waves. The results are then used to describe the geologic formations through which the shock waves traveled.

The client asked IBM Research to work on an application that would help optimize the position of seismic explosions and receivers for seismic survey design. This is important for:

Improving data quality - the better the data, the better the 3D model

Improving efficiency - better algorithms mean less processing time and improved results

Reducing costs - using fewer resources to achieve better results.

IBM Research's solution involves using an object-oriented approach, an improved analytical model and an unstructured mesh instead of a fixed grid for interpreting results. The solution is a more accurate, flexible and robust approach to the calculations required for seismic survey design.

Capabilities applied

IBM Research combines its experience in the fields of mathematics, computing and model-rendering to help achieve practical results in oil exploration that are expected to reduce risk for the oil company.