CAGC Column

…Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister of the Environment, recently filed Canada’s emission targets with the U.N. The target, a reduction of emissions by 17 % from 2005 to be accomplished by 2020, matches the USA target. It is imperative that the targets are the same for any chance of success for…

Tracing the Industry

…By the time you are reading this column Kelly and I will be in Orlando, Florida. It will be wonderful to get away from the snow and cold for a couple of weeks. So when you read this column you can think of us relaxing in Florida! I have a…

Grapevine

…March 2010 – May you have the luck of the Irish this month! What do get when you cross a pillow case and a stone? Sham Rock 2010 DOODLESPIEL RESULTS A big thank you to all of those who attended this year’s 38th annual Doodlespiel event in Lethbridge. This was…

Peter Cary

An Interview with Peter Cary

…Please tell us about your educational background and your work experience. I’m originally from Alberta, growing up in Edmonton, but I finished high school in Timmins, Northern Ontario, where my father worked for several years as a chemical engineer in the mining industry. So I ended up going to university…

Presidential Column

…This is the first Presidential column I have written in the New Year and would like to start off the column by wishing our members a successful 2010. The year 2009 was a tough year. Some of our members were downsized. Let us hope 2010 holds better. For our society…

Executive Message

…“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” G. K. Chesterson My parents were both teachers and my father, who was an uncommonly gifted math teacher, and also my mentor in life, gave me many examples of how a great teacher can…

CAGC Column

…At a high level – seismic in Canada has likely reached its lowest activity point in decades. At the height of the boom in Winter 2006-07 we ran between 40-50 crews. Last winter was down to 30-35. This year we are down to 20-25. Over the last decade we have…

Tracing the Industry

…I am very pleased to have quite a few new job announcements this month. Hopefully the good news will continue. I have received a lot of positive feedback on this column in the last month. I would especially like to thank Jason Harper (Divestco) for making a point of introducing…

Grapevine

…February 2010 – The month of love! Valentine’s Day, we all know it is on February 14th, comes every year, but here is your friendly reminder to do something nice for your beloved – flowers, dinner, chocolates – whatever it may be, let’s celebrate! For those who are newly dating,…

Characterization of a heavy oil reservoir using Vp/Vs ratio and neural network analysis

Carmen C. Dumitrescu and Larry Lines

…Introduction The Oil Sands reservoir related to the Long Lake South (LLS) Project is contained within the McMurray Formation, which is the basal unit of the Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group. The McMurray Formation directly overlies the Subcretaceous Unconformity, which is developed on Paleozoic carbonates of the Beaver Hill Lake Group,…

Magnitude Determination, Event Detectability, and Assessing the Effectiveness of Microseismic Monitoring Programs in Petroleum Applications

Adam Baig and Ted Urbancic

…Introduction Magnitudes and locations are the first-order output for microseismic events recorded during hydraulic fracture stimulations and longer term reservoir based extraction operations (eg., CSS, SAG-D, CO2 sequestration). The magnitude describes the strength of an event and tells us about the dynamics of the fracturing processes and the distribution of…

Sensitivity measurements for locating microseismic events

John C. Bancroft, Joe Wong, and Lejia Han

…Abstract The first-arrival clock-times from a number of receivers are used to estimate the clock-time and location of a microseismic event. The 3D analytic solution is based on a 2D Apollonius method which requires four receivers that are non-coplanar or non-collinear. These restrictions are typically violated when receivers are placed…

The old and new in noise removal, wavefield representation and data regularization

Mauricio Sacchi, Sam Kaplan and Mostafa Naghizadeh

…Introduction Traditional noise removal methods based on Fourier analysis, Radon transforms, and prediction filtering have occupied an important place in our arsenal of methods for noise attenuation. They all rely on different assumptions and, in general, on a simple signal model. An open problem in seismic data processing is the…

Executive Message

…As I write this I am gazing out at our cold snowy streets and thinking about the Christmas shopping I must tackle in the next week or so. Times are tough out there and I have to think there are a lot of people in this city that will struggle…

Impact of Microseismic Location Uncertainties On Interpreted Fracture Geometries

Shawn Maxwell

…Microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracturing is a growing technology throughout North America, and especially in the WCSB. Microearthquakes associated with hydraulic fracture stimulations are used to image the fracture network induced by the injection, and provide unique information about the fracture geometries. In an article in the March 2009 issue…

Gaussian-beam polarization-based location methods using S-waves for hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity

Xueping Zhao, David S. Collins, and R. Paul Young

…Summary We propose a new method to locate hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity using three-component S-waveforms. The method requires only time intervals around the peak amplitude of the S-wave and does not depend on the arrival-time picking accuracy. The initial-value for the ray tracing is along the direction of wave propagation…

Classification of microseismic events via principal component analysis of trace statistics

Jeffrey F. Tan, Robert R. Stewart, and Joe Wong

…Abstract Prior to microseismic hypocenter location, an event-classification technique must be used to identify “good” events warranting further investigation from “noise” events that are generally not of interest. A passive-seismic monitoring system may record tens or hundreds of thousands of microseismic traces daily, so the event classification method must be…

CAGC Column

…Energy Literacy in Alberta – in a recent poll (Feb 2009) Angus Reid surveyed Albertans, Alberta Educators, and Energy Leaders on the perception of energy literacy in this Province. The following column focuses on some of the results. As the world focuses post-Kyoto and the outcome of Copenhagen remaining uncertain…

Tracing the Industry

…Happy New Year! The last year has been very challenging for a lot of us. Some days it has been hard to keep a positive outlook. I started in the industry at Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas in late 1979.( Wow, did I just date myself!) I have been through…

Sergey Fomel

An Interview with Sergey Fomel

…Sergey, I would like you to speak a little about your educational background and work experience. I grew up in the city of Novosibirsk in Siberia, more precisely in Akademgorodok, a region of Novosibirsk, which has one of the largest concentrations of scientists in the world. Growing up in Akademgorodok…