What can Geoteric do for you? 

It is not uncommon for wells to be shut-in or sidetracked due to unforeseen complications.  We wanted to know if our AI Fault Interpretation Service could be used in a “real-life” scenario to reveal geological hazards and ensure drilling safety and as a result, maximise production revenues. 

The Canning Basin has undergone several phases of tectonic deformation, which has led to it becoming a complex structural setting, difficult to understand. It’s crucial to understand the regional structure and implications of such on the hydrocarbon system.

Extending asset life, maximising productivity and reducing unplanned shutdowns remains a top priority for operators. To transform their asset understanding and performance, Aker BP wanted to know if Geoteric’s AI Fault Interpretation could unlock a new level of insight, ensure drilling safety and as a result maximise production revenues.

Effective deepwater exploration and development has made it possible to access new hydrocarbon reserves. Despite the potentially high risk and high cost, successful developments can offer significant return. To ensure long-term sustainability, operators need to provide a strong economic story, which can be supported by a comprehensive subsurface understanding.

As infrastructure continues to be maximized extending field life, under explored or underdeveloped areas such as fractured basements are being revisited. Effective assessment and understanding of the fracture network and fluid distribution is key in planning exploration and appraisal well programmes. Using legacy seismic data, operators are looking towards new technologies to effectively address the potential risks and opportunities for further field development.

Manual fault interpretation is particularly challenging when the fault throw is close to seismic resolution.  A comprehensive and time intensive interpretation of crosslines, inlines and arbitrary sections is required to accurately interpret the vertical and lateral fault variations. To identify new exploration targets within such a complex area requires a more thorough and complete understanding of the structural geology.

Seismic response and amplitude can vary at discovery and appraisal locations. To effectively asses possible reserves, it is crucial to understand what causes colour variations and test what amplitude and frequency combinations best discriminate geological features to explain those changes.

Although seismic processing continues to advance, imaging subsalt structures still presents a challenge . With new licence rounds opening in regions such as offshore Brazil, the potential prize for accurately interpreting these structures is a great one.

The Main Pass Area is currently under brown field development and production, there is also associated infrastructure-led exploration.  Given these circumstances, the need to extract new insightful information from existing datasets becomes ever more crucial for successful drilling and production campaigns.

A detailed shallow hazard assessment reveals the possible constraints from man-made and geological features, to ensure appropriate mitigation practices are identified and adopted.

Accurate, high-resolution reservoir models are critical to a better understanding of the reservoir heterogeneity for enhanced oil recovery.