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Using 3D seismic and a new computer program, BP can more precisely locate oil in the vicinity of salt domes. They have already found a lot of oil using this new program. Looks like happy motoring is here to stay.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/busines ... 103164.php

British oil major BP has discovered 200 million barrels of oil in a hidden cache in the Gulf of Mexico, thanks to a technological breakthrough allowing the company to see beneath geological formations that had befuddled oil exploration for decades.

The find, worth a potential $2 billion in recoverable oil, is in an undrilled section of BP's Atlantis field in 7,000 feet of water 150 miles from New Orleans. Long obscured by a salt dome, which distorts seismic waves that oil companies use to map features below the earth, the oil reserves were revealed by using a supercomputer and mathematical algorithm to interpret the seismic data in a new way.

The Gulf find is another example of oil companies advancing technology to make unexpected discoveries. The advent of seismic imaging allowed oil and gas companies to model mineral layers below the earth's surface and drill more precisely. The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unleashed the U.S. onshore shale revolution.

While this is great for BP and will hold consumer prices down for a while as old fields around salt domes are explored for untapped deposits I wouldn't call it a game changer. After all there is only so much oil around salt domes on our finite planet and oilco's have already done a fair job of exploiting those deposits.

Instead of drilling dry holes they can drill more precisely and hit oil due to this imaging. Oil is finite, that is for sure, but drilling is costly and anything that can be done to avoid dry holes, is a good thing. I call that a game changer.

Once they start marketing this new program and software to other oil exploration firms, its more oil for all of us.

The methodology of BP's algorithm for imaging under salt domes is an innovation that is probably not just available to them.

http://terrasysgeo.com/?gclid=CPC8yebyz ... wAodtjsCPQ

I suspect all exploration companies can avail themselves if they have leases in areas of merit.

farmer - Correcto mundo. LOL. Seismic data is constantly being reprocessed with tweaked software. And has been for decades. The big game changer came about 10+ years ago when in-house computer power leaped forward and we didn't have to always go to processing companies with big mainframes. It's not uncommon for reprocessing data to require hundreds of TRILLIONS of calculations taking months.

Given BP discovered the Atlantis Field 19 years ago I'm sure the seismic has been reprocessed multiple times. Maybe even shot some new dasta. One big advantage of reprocessing data after wells have been drilled is the acquisition of geophysical data from the well bores that's used in the processing software: refining the many rock velocity assumptions required for processing will always yield better results. Adding 200 million bbls is great but the original URR was 600 mm bo: already knew it was one of the biggest DW GOM fields.

According to BP they can do this analysis in weeks not months and gives them a lot more clarity than any algorithm they have used before.

If I recall my geology classes correctly, salt domes bend up surrounding sedimentary rocks and form traps where you can find hydrocarbons. If they are very accurately modeling where those trapped sedimentary rocks are, does that not increase the probability of drilling a productive hole versus a dry hole?

"BP...can do this analysis in weeks not months." Then it was either a small data set or not much of a tweak. Reprocessing of large data sets can take 6 months. It doesn't matter who is driving the computer: some of the process takes a long time. But data that has already been reprocessed doesn't take long to do again.

OTOH be it a few weeks or several months doesn't matter much when it can take 2+ years to get a DW GOM permitted and a rig on location. That part of the dynamic has always been the major timing factor. I once watched an operator take almost 5 years from the time they decided to drill until that spudded the well. One big problem was Brazil's Petrobra: at one time it had 19 of the 23 ultra deep water drill rigs tied up with long term contracts. IOW it might have taken BP just a few weeks to reprocess that data but it might have done that and generated the prospect a year ago...or 2...or longer. Nothing in DW happens ferry fast which is why it often takes 5+ years from discovery till the first bbl is produced.

One of the biggest problems with seismic data around salt is the "velocity model". The signature of a sound wave will vary greatly with changes in the rock velocity. And velocity variations associated with salt are some of the biggest we deal with. A big help is running a "velocity survey" down an existing well bore. I'm sure you can envision a string of geophones laying along the ground as a seismic line is shot. Now picture that string being run vertically down a well bore. The we fire a shot at the surface and record the different times it takes to reach each geophone. That gives a much better velocity model. Hundreds of dry holes have been drilled because of inaccurate velocity models.

But sometimes corrected VM's can lead to new reservoirs being discovered even in old fields. Been done mucho times especially in fields associated with salt. In fact about 15+ years ago companies discovered that the basic salt dome model (a "mushroom" of salt coming close to the surface did not always extend downward towards the massive salt layer but had completely separated: in profile looking like a floating tear drop instead of a mushroom. IOW there were potential reservoirs under the salt "done" which wasn't really a dome after all.

pstarr wrote:So it's not an oil-bidness game changer, more like loose change lol

Okay guys, may we now return to the very important bidness of morning the end of the age of oil?

Please go away unless you have something to add to this important subject. You have a thread were you can spout your doom already.

Here is an excerpt of the article:

British oil major BP has discovered 200 million barrels of oil in a hidden cache in the Gulf of Mexico, thanks to a technological breakthrough allowing the company to see beneath geological formations that had befuddled oil exploration for decades.

The find, worth a potential $2 billion in recoverable oil

I read two numbers:

200 million barrels discovered.
recoverable oil worth a potential of $2 billion.

Something doesn't add up, as that suggests that if all that discovered 200 million barrels were actually produced, its value would only be $10/barrel.

So they must be assuming that some or most of the oil will be left in-place and only a fraction of the 200 million bbls will be produced.

Any educated guesses about how much will be produced, and what the price will have to be to make it profitable for BP?

Or this this more of the pubco stock "reserve" game that RM frequently mentions ..this is a new way to build up "reserves" and at you gotta have the "reserves" to satisfy your stock requirements for valuation, even if you can't actually "produce" from those reserves at a profit.

Are you forgetting that there is a cost to exploration and production? Or are you another ETP'er who assume everyone works for free?

BP's press release has a few more snippets including before and after pictures:

Proprietary algorithms developed by BP’s Subsurface Technical Center were applied on seismic data run at BP’s Center for High Performance Computing, one of the largest supercomputers in the world dedicated to commercial research. The algorithms allowed data that would normally take a year to be analyzed to be processed in only a few weeks, accelerating BP’s development decisions for the field.

The algorithms enhance a technique known as Full Waveform Inversion (FWI), which matches seismic simulations with existing seismic data to produce high quality subsurface images. “This innovation again shows that BP remains at the forefront of advanced seismic imaging and digital technologies,” said Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s head of upstream technology. “The new technique has produced the best images of this reservoir that we have ever seen.”

*Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) uses advanced algorithms to iteratively refine models of the subsurface by generating seismic wave simulations and adjusting the values of subsurface properties based on the quality of the match between the simulated and recorded data.

Previous images of the Atlantis reservoir had been partially obscured by a massive salt formation above it. But BP scientists designed a new algorithm and used BP’s Center for High Performance Computing to produce a more accurate image of the salt formation. Below you can download an image of the formation from 2004, followed by one from 2016, using the new technique.

before:


After:

BP takes leap forward in seismic imaging technology

200 million barrels divided by the USA's consumption of 20 mbpd gives us just 100 days or as Long as Trump has been president. The value is not in what they have found but in the ability to take a better look in a lot of other places and save a lot of dry holes.

vtsnowedin wrote:200 million barrels divided by the USA's consumption of 20 mbpd gives us just 100 days or as Long as Trump has been president. The value is not in what they have found but in the ability to take a better look in a lot of other places and save a lot of dry holes.

Exactly.

Although the doom and gloomers think that 200 million barrels is nothing.

vtsnowedin wrote:200 million barrels divided by the USA's consumption of 20 mbpd gives us just 100 days or as Long as Trump has been president. The value is not in what they have found but in the ability to take a better look in a lot of other places and save a lot of dry holes.

10 days. Of course it will be produced over a long period of time, so the point isn't very relevant.

MD wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:200 million barrels divided by the USA's consumption of 20 mbpd gives us just 100 days or as Long as Trump has been president. The value is not in what they have found but in the ability to take a better look in a lot of other places and save a lot of dry holes.

10 days. Of course it will be produced over a long period of time, so the point isn't very relevant.

You are correct of course but it certainly is no Ghawar giant field with it's 71 billion barrels.

Of course, it's not just US consumption that's involved, and not just production rate by itself but that in relation to population.

pstarr wrote:Oops vt . . . wrong again. Ghawar only has 9.6922 billion barrels in p95 reserves. Or is it 9.73 million? Is that bpd? Or what? Correct me if I am wrong. K?

Ghawar has an estimated 70 billion barrels of proven reserves:

Saudi Arabia's (and the world's) largest oil field (Ghawar) alone contains an estimated 70 billion barrels of proved reserves

Saudi Arabia was world's largest petroleum producer and net exporter in 2012 - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Reserves
According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Saudi Arabia contains approximately 265 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The giant Ghawar field, the world's largest oil field with estimated remaining reserves of 70 billion barrels, has more proven oil reserves than all but seven other countries.

EIA: Saudi Arabia