Total 3D seismic onshore - a disruptive transition! London, Nov 2011.

Transcription

1 Total 3D seismic onshore - a disruptive transition! London, Nov Bob Heath - Technical Marketing Manager. iseis Company. Ponca City, Oklahoma, USA.

2 Future-seismic, how universal hardware will improve our ability to find oil. Bob Bob Heath Heath - - Technical not a geophysicist, Marketing geologist Manager. iseis or geo-anything. Company. Ponca City, Oklahoma, USA.

3 Background Degree in physics, mostly electronics and astrophysics. Started two year job in land seismic in But this is ideal background to understand disruptions. To study galaxies, black holes etc.

4 Finding More Petroleum Question: Is disruption necessary to escape the high cost and safety risk of cable-based seismic onshore? Answer: Consider the practice of science: Come up with hypothesis, devise experiment to gather data to test hypothesis. Understand how design and use of instrumentation limits the experiment. How aware is our industry of how hardware restricts what we can do? Not very!

5 In astrophysics, the limitations of instruments are more obvious than those in geophysics: E.g. Telescope: Reflecting or Refracting? Sensor limitation? Location of hardware? In most sciences, progress is limited by equipment we can use and how we use it. If land seismic is 20 years behind marine, is it just a matter out-of-date instrumentation leading to a need for a technical disruption? Any other type of disruption?

6 A disruptive technology is an innovation that helps create a new market ---- displacing an earlier technology. The term is used to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers and later by lowering prices in the existing market. Disruptive Technology necessary? Certainly!

7 Disruptive Technology: Also conferred with: Industry Engineers, Senior Geologists, Senior Geophysicists. Certainly, and on-going ---if it gives us the opportunity to make better business decisions.

8 Disruptive Technology: How should it be organised - this industry has bad record of accepting anything new. It is important to understand where we are currently limited in our experiments. A brief history of some important disruptions.

9 Perform experiments Take measurements. First attempt at measurement: Robert Mallett (1849). Hg 2 lbs gunpowder

10 Perform experiments Take measurements. First attempt at measurement: Experiment failed: insufficient source effort, bad instrumentation. Hg

11 Second measurement with equipment. US Army (1876). Greater source effort, longer travel distance. Better experimental success thanks to the first disruption in land seismic. 25 tons dynamite

12 Instrumentation: Sources Sensors Recording system *

13 The Equipment Data recorders. Finding More Petroleum Recording system Common Mid Point recording

14 The Equipment Data recorders. Finding More Petroleum Basic requirement of (2D) experiment: Sample (=channel) > λ/2 (5 m?) Consideration for range of offsets and instrument movement (10 km?) = 2,000 channels. Record length: 6 secs, 2 ms sampling = 25 MB storage/shot.

15 The Equipment Data recorders. Finding More Petroleum But we only had this! 48 channels of digitising electronics inside truck. Data capacity of tape?

16 The Equipment Data recorders. Finding More Petroleum Recording system 48 pair: ~200 kg/km Common Mid Point recording

17 The Equipment Data recorders. Experiment limited 1000 pair: Disruption required. ~tons/km

18 Relevant technology to improve the experiment (s) already existed in other industries. Why did disruption take so long?

19 The Equipment Data recorders. Handful of suppliers, i.e. some choice. Including some of largest electronics co s in the world. But a curiosity about our industry is that one company often tends to dominate the market by large factor. A B C D E Company/brand.

20 The Equipment Data recorders. Positive feedback. Contractor A more likely to buy system if contractor B already has one. Oil companies Industry tend to limited choose contractor with well known systems, not most flexible system. 2 nd disruption required. Relatively few contractors or oil companies understand the differences between the systems the experiments they can do.

21 The Equipment Data recorders. Two disruptions happened: (i) Equipment and (ii) Supplier. A B C D E

22 Electronics distributed- digital data transmission. A most necessary technical disruption, a great advance in seismic instrumentation. Essential to make progress ch ch. 6 conductors, ~100 kg/km.

23 The Equipment Data recorders. Competition fights back but same feedback problem as before---. A B C D E

24 The Equipment Data recorders. Improved hardware (e.g. 24 bit convertors) eventually leads to 3D experiments becoming possible.

25 The Equipment. Finding More Petroleum Cable-based recorders continue incremental development. But then cable problems start to become apparent. 4 conductors, ~50 kg/km s channels.

26 The Equipment. Cable-based recorders significantly developed. Finding More Petroleum Cable-based equipment reaches limit of development: Data rate. Weight reduction. Cost to use. Serial reliability. HSE exposure etc.

27 The Equipment Data recorders. Almost all manufacturers developing CMP experiment hardware. Common Mid Point recording

28 The Equipment. Cable-based recorders significantly developed. Finding More Petroleum Is it time for more disruptions? Just as important: Is CMP the only experiment we want to do?

29 The Equipment What experiments do we want to do? 1,000,000 Moore's Law: Seismic Channels Channels Courtesy: D. Monk/Apache Coprn. Year 2020?

30 The Equipment We want no limit on experiments we can do. Norm Cooper: 3-D stands for "Design for 2D and 3D. Density Random and placement Diversity". (geometry of experiment SEG2011, not limited papers by how by: system must be used). S. Trickett, CMP, azimuth Kelman and more offset random ranges sampling c/w multi-dimensional Single sensors or interpolation arrays, 3C. in processing reduces Work costs. in all terrain types and environments. C. Stork, 4D/time-lapse. Landmark - directs us to stop thinking of CMP Passive, what permanent, we need to micro-seismic do, and think of monitoring. full wavefield Geotechnical, acquisition. experimental, megachannel. (Appropriate) mixtures of any of the above = TOTAL SEISMIC.

31 The Equipment We want no limit on experiments we can do. 2D and 3D. Random placement (geometry of experiment not limited by how system must be used). CMP, Requirements azimuth and for offset passive, ranges permanent, Single sensors arrays, 3C. MSM type recording far exceed those Work in all terrain types and environments. 4D/time-lapse. of active acquisition. Passive, permanent, micro-seismic monitoring. Geotechnical, experimental, megachannel. (Appropriate) mixtures of any of the above.

32 The Equipment We want no limit on experiments we can do in passive/permanent especially.

33 The Equipment We want universal hardware to---. Single recorder or mixed recorder. Recorderless (no observer or CRU, just coordinator ). Single source, multiple source, mixed source. Choice of real time, QC/status only, shoot blind. Multiple ways of providing system timing. Multiple ways of gathering/harvesting data. Configurable channel capacity/ground unit. Internet connected systems, e.g: GoogleEarth and other imagery. Lower cost, lower HSE exposure. movie

34 Universal Equipment 32 bit, no (effective) memory limit. VHF and GPS timing. Shoot blind, status return, real time. Harvesting by PC, USB, ethernet, directional and omnidirectional wifi (without interrupting acqn). MSM and active source control interfaces.

35 Universal Equipment Already developed. Multiple timing methods, harvesting methods, mesh networking etc.

36 Universal Equipment Component approach. Geophysical Objectives: determines equipment needed. Data harvesting separation and file production Source control interface Planning:- cost control, HSE, equipment availability Tripoli Cairo, May Real-time Receiver deployment, monitoring. QC & status. Line interface (cable). Line interface (VHF). Line interface (Mesh radio). Line interface (Wifi radio). Field unit with necessary flexibility (comms, memory, control, specs, interface etc. Other (3 rd party) recording systems.

37 Universal Equipment One manufacturer can make one piece or all. This is the (equipment) But must be compatible with other pieces. If in disruption other industries we (e.g: need, home not entertainment, just a kitchen etc) why not in geophysical experiments? move to cableless recording.

38 Universal Equipment Other disruption needed limit positive feedback. Maintain competition through better understanding of hardware and how it limits experiments. A B C D E

39 Universal Equipment This is enabling improvements, examples: Distribution of GPS corrections in cableless system mesh radio networks. Multiple source/multiple recorder.

40 Universal Equipment This is enabling improvements, examples: Very large real time cableless live patch (big or permanent experiments). 25 km 30 km

41 Universal Equipment This is enabling improvements, examples: Mesh traffic monitoring.

42 From Savazzi & Spagnolini, Compression and coding for cablefree land systems to appear in Geophysics, Compression techniques for real-time multi-hop cableless systems, exploiting space-time coherence of data, reduces data volume by >80%. (Transmission of data requires tens nj/bit).

43 Source controllers. Disruption (yet) again needed to create general purpose source control to provide completely The next steps smart for uses of sources. High Production Vibroseis (HPV): Geophysical Objectives Vibs can t get heavier so-- Planning:- cost control, HSE, equipment availability Better understanding of vibrators. (Continuous) recording system Source control interface Source control: rules definition for simultaneous use in time, space, frequency, phase. Collision management, GPS navigation etc. TDM A Serv er VHF radio GP S Radio comms must be two way for large no. sources. Shooting without comms. Source 1 Signature/TB recording. TDMA decoding. Wifi Source 2 Source Source n

44 Source controllers. Disruption (yet) again needed to create general purpose source control to provide completely The next steps smart for uses of sources. High Production Vibroseis (HPV): Geophysical Objectives Vibs can t get heavier so-- Planning:- cost control, HSE, equipment availability Better understanding of vibrators. Smarter use of vibrators. (Continuous) recording system Source control interface Source control: rules definition for simultaneous use in time, space, frequency, phase. Collision management, GPS navigation etc. How many controlled and Radio comms must monitored GP S simultaneously? be two way for large no. sources. Shooting without comms. Source 1 Signature/TB recording. TDMA decoding. Wifi Source 2 Source Source n TDM A Serv er VHF radio

45 Disruptions we didn t need? Sensors. Late 1990 s: sensor-related disruption: MEMS: advantages only for tilt, DC-1000 Hz, (flatter response?)

46 Disruptions we didn t need? Sensors. Late 1990 s: sensor-related disruption: MEMS disadvantages: need power, noisier for most of seismic band, cannot form hardwired arrays, cost, little competition. Took attention away from disruption which was needed in recording systems.

47 The Equipment. Sensors, ideal characteristics (technical and commercial): Faithfully capture all essential details of reflected signal:- frequency range, dynamic range, distortion. Require no power. Used in arrays or singularly. Sensitive. Low noise. Unaffected by tilt angle. Robust. Low cost. Low weight. Low maintenance. Available for multiple manufacturers.

48 Disruptions we didn t need? Sensors. Velocity sensor development now continues (mostly in China): Better materials. Better sensitivity (without increasing noise?) Better spurious and LF response. 3C. Costs reduced by factor of 2-3.

49 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science.

50 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science. We do a bad job on land because our equipment still limits our experiments.

51 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science. We do a bad job on land because our equipment still limits our experiments. Our limited equipment choice limits imagination.

52 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science. We do a bad job on land because our equipment still limits our experiments. Our limited equipment choice limits imagination. We must make two disruptive transitions to: Universal equipment, mix-n-match. Any situation which limits choice.

53 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science. We do a bad job on land because our equipment still limits our experiments. Our limited equipment choice limits imagination. We must make two disruptive transitions to: Universal equipment, mix-n-match. Any situation which limits choice. The industry must find better ways formally to educate end-users about hardware.

54 Conclusions Geophysics is (kind of) experimental and practical science. We do a bad job on land because our equipment still limits Three our experiments. promising avenues: Our limited Smart equipment uses choice of sources. limits imagination. We must make two disruptive transitions to: Universal Cableless equipment, seismic. mix-n-match. Any Passive situation which seismic. limits choice. The industry must find better ways formally to educate end-users about hardware. (which this forum does very well---- -).

55 Thanks to: David Bamford and team. John Giles, President, iseis Inc. Scott Burkholder, Chief Geophysicist, iseis Inc. Norm Cooper, Mustagh Resources. Jim Odonnell, BC Geophysics. Chapel Allen, Occidental. Dave Monk, Apache. Christof Stork, Landmark. Stewart Trickett, Kelman Calgary. S. Savvazi & U. Spagnolini, WiSyGEo, Univ of Milan. Julien Meunier, CGGVeritas. ENI, Aramco, Prosol, Sercel. (and Ian Jack).